Can I Writ A Blog Without Th Lttr Found Btwn D and F? With As!

I took this pictur back in Dcmbr knowing that on day I'd us it. I didn't know how I'd us it, but it was just too juicy to pass up. I found this strt sign in Toronto's Lslivill nighbourhood, and was intrigud.

What is a Blong? Or what is it to Blong? I drov down Wikipdia Avnu and found a dad nd. It suggstd that Blong might b a contractd vrsion of 'blong' but Wikipdia was vry non-committal.

On Googl I found an actrss calld Jnni Blong. You might rmmbr hr from such films as 200 Cigartts and Cry-Baby. No? I didn't s thos movis ithr.

I guss th fact of th mattr is that I hav no ida how Blong Avnu got its nam. Lik many things in Toronto, it just is, for no apparnt rason. How, for xampl, did Yong Strt gt its nam? This tim Wikipdia dlivrd....

Th strt was namd by Ontario's first colonial administrator, John Gravs Simco, for his frind Sir Gorg Yong, an xprt on ancint Roman roads.

Gorg Yong was a roads scholar, I suppos.

Ian, you'r rambling. You'd bttr nd this blog now or you'll los your radrship of fiv.

So, radership of fiv, how do you lik lif without th lttr btwn D and F? Annoyd or amusd?

Do You Know Tom T.Hall?

"Do you know Tom T.Hall?", the entertainer asked the audience.

"I don't even know where my room is", replied a frail old voice.

This was my day yesterday. I was at my Mom's nursing home for an afternoon visit. As is often often the case, an entertainer was scheduled for the 2:30 p.m. time slot. On this occasion it was an affable guitar player named Albert.

Albert played the guitar very well and had a rich voice. He offered up some golden oldie country songs, and a few new ones. Prior to asking the Tom T.Hall question, Albert was playing a song called People Are Crazy. It wasn't a song that was familiar to me, but the lyrics were memorable....

God is great,
Beer is good, 
And people are crazy.

This may be my new favourite new-country song! This song was not written or performed by Tom T.Hall. It's a song by Billy Currington (never heard of him either). The song combines all the key elements necessary to create a hit song. The list of lyrical attributes for a hit country song are as follows:

1) a catch phrase that people of low intellect can remember.

It's a short list, Ian, but you've made a good point (with example).

Country music has a basic formula. Every hit song must be dumbed down and simple. People Are Crazy will appeal to a great swath of the North American population, particularly Republicans and Western Red-necked Harperites. The video for the song is also new-country 'perfection'. It features beer, jean jackets, a reference to God, a good looking male singer and a few female hotties (who have probably never been on a farm or experienced the joy of sandy clay loam between the toes).

There is one other lyrical attribute that can help to push a song over-the-top, and that attribute is a make-up word (that rhymes with an impossible word). Where else but a country song would you find the word 'millionairy' (mill yawn air eee). Billy Currington needed something to rhyme with 'obituary'. I kid you not! Don't believe me, then watch the video yourself:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKpQRjj_WbU

Umm, Ian, we're not learning much about Tom T.Hall.

Oh, yeah. He wrote a song called Harper Valley PTA and ten other Number One hit songs. I know Harper Valley PTA because it was huge hit in 1968, and I couldn't escape it on the radio (note: it's not because I was a 5 year old country music aficionado). I didn't know who wrote the song though. It's also worth mentioning that Tom T.Hall wrote the song but it was sung by a woman (whose name I don't know either, in my own defence)

So..........when Albert asked the question 'do you know Tom T.Hall', I was able to absolve myself of shame. The question fell upon deaf ears, except for the woman who didn't know where her room was.

The Dearly Departed

It's nothing short of a Christmas 'miracle' that Wendy and Julian were able to fly to Toronto yesterday. All day long flights originating from the Fredericton airport were cancelled. When I took them to the airport, we looked at the arrivals and departures board. The flights to Halifax, Ottawa and Montreal were all cancelled, yet their 8:20 p.m. flight to Toronto was still scheduled to go.

I left Wendy and Julian at the airport and drove back into Fredericton. At 8:25 p.m. the phone rang and my first thought was 'oh shit, they cancelled the flight after all'. It was Wendy on the phone, which left me even more convinced that the flight was toasted. Amazingly not. Wendy called to say that they boarded about half the people on the plane, including Wendy and Julian, and then announced that they'd be sitting on the plane (on the tarmac) for another hour and a half because the Toronto airport was backlogged with re-directed flights.

I received an e-mail from Wendy at 3:25 a.m. (AST) saying that they made it to the condo at 3 a.m. Sounded like one hell of a long day, but it was better than the alternative....

People whose flights were cancelled earlier in the day were being booked on flights for Tuesday because all Monday flights were already full. Ah, winter travel in Canada.....ain't it grand!

Mootha's Lasagne

Everyone has a favourite recipe from their childhood, and mine was lasagne. Of course I never made the lasagne myself....that was Mom's job and she excelled at it. It was delicious.

How delicious was it, Ian?

It was so delicious that if there was one piece left over, my brother Doug would lick it in order to keep me from getting it. The lasagne was spectacular, but not enough for me to eat a slice with my brother's slobber on it. I had my limits, and Doug knew them.

Did you ever lick a slice, Ian, in order to keep your brother from getting it?

No comment (tongue tied).

Today I'm going to make a lasagne using Mom's recipe. When I say Mom's recipe, I mean the one she used. She probably nicked it off a pasta box or from a recipe book. Who cares about its origin? It's Me Mootha's and that's that!

Here's the recipe in case you feel so inclined....

Lasagne

1 lb. extra lean hamburger
1 clove of minced garlic
1 TBS basil
1.5 TSP salt
1 lb. can (2 cups) tomatoes
2 6-oz. cans (1.33 cups) tomato paste
10 oz. lasagne noodles
3 cups creamy cottage cheese (I hate cottage cheese but it's works for this recipe)
0.5 cup of grated Parmesan
2 TBS parsley flakes
2 beaten eggs
1 TSP salt
0.5 TSP pepper
1 lb. mozzarella cheese (sliced thin or grated)

Brown meat slowly, spoon off excess fat. Add next five ingredients. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cook noodles in large amount of boiling salted water until tender. Drain and rinse.

Combine remaining ingredients except cheese. Place half noodles in 13 x 9 x 2 inch dish. Spread half cottage cheese filling, add half mozzarella cheese and half meat sauce. repeat layers.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting in squares. Makes 12 servings. Keep leftovers away from Doug.

Dual Noggins Are More Advantageous Than A Singular Unit

If you've ever slept on a boat with five strangers as I once did for a week, you'll know that two heads are better than one. A 'head', in nautical terms, is the area where one does one's business...it's the toilet. Sadly the C&C 41 on which I was sailing had only one head, but sailing around St.Barth's, St.Martin, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands certainly diminished the suffering 'below'.

Today's blog is about two heads, if the image didn't give it away. Two heads brings to mind Wendy. Better to have two heads than two tongues or two faces, eh? As of January 2015, Wendy is now the acting Head Of Voice for the University of Toronto's Music Faculty. It 's a new appointment. She continues to be the Head Vocal Consultant for the Canadian Opera Company as well.

Heady stuff, wouldn't you say?

Congratulations, Wendy. I have no doubt that you'll do a marvelous job...and I am proud of all of your accomplishments. You will absolutely glow in this new position, and I will help. Jeez, I'm getting all choked up with emotion.

You look red in the face, Ian. Are you feeling okay?

I'm fine. I'm just a little flush (comparatively).

2015 - The Banning Of The Beige

We started 2015 on a great note....a family party at our place. I know, I know....that doesn't make sense. Let me extrapolate. We held a Nielsen family party and we served a salad as the main course.

A salad? No one eats salad as a main course over the holidays, Ian! That's culinary blasphemy!! Surely you had a turkey on the table?

The only turkey was the one diving into the Cheesie bowl, and I was like Cousteau on crack. Gawd I'm out of control when there's snack food around. It's pathetic.

So, I ate an amazing salad for the main course <insert the sound of cheers>, but what did I eat before I got to the main course? Let's list some of the culprits:

- chips
- the aforementioned Cheesies (the hard, gnarly, addictive like crack-cocaine types)
- pigs in a blanket
- meatballs
-tortilla twists
- shrimp
- sugary citrus shaped slices of candy
- crackers and hummus
- crackers and Emile Zola. Sorry, I meant to write Gorgonzola.
- celery sticks with something weirdly beige in them.

Note: I purposely neglected to include Aunt Carolyn's crab dip in my list because I fear that she might be developing a complex with regard to my dissing of beige food. She made Christmas Eve's spectacularly delicious seafood casserole that I thoughtlessly lumped in with all the other shite I ate over the holidays (in a previous, dastardly blog). Carolyn made a delicious crab dip for the New Year's Day party, which I enjoyed immensely. I tip my (Tilley) hat to Carolyn.

Hopefully the above paragraph will get me back in Carolyn's good books!

I should mention that I washed down my food with juice BUT it wasn't 100% juice. It's what the industry calls a 'cocktail'. A cocktail, by definition, is a drink made of at least two ingredients, one of which must be unpalatable on its own. In yesterday's case the label said cranberry but it's actually made of a blend of apple and grape juice (the mutts of the juice world). Even the dog juices took a back seat to the cocktail's first two ingredients: water, glucose/fructose. Cocktail drinks are evil and should not be consumed by human beings, lab rats or even the lowest of the lows...Leafs fans.

Oh, and we had brownies for dessert!

I've decided to start 2015 right and the only way I can do that is to begin 2015 on January 2. I'm having leftover salad for breakfast....happily!

Happy New Year! Now, let us purge.

(Almost) Darwinian Acts Of Lunacy...Good-bye 2014

I was lying in bed this morning wondering what I would use for a blog topic. I decided to do something that I've never done before...I'd go fishing for a topic.

I plotted, in advance, to scour the headlines for the most incredibly stupid act of New Year's Eve or New Year's Day (so far).

There was a lot of competition for the title of 'most incredibly stupid act'. I decided to settle on a group of four canoeists who thought it would be a good idea to go for an evening paddle on the Ottawa River. Here's what the headline said....

Canoeists Rescued From Ice-Clogged Ottawa River.

I won't bore you with the entire article, but I will share a few points of note:

- frigid temperatures
- caught on ice shelf 150 metres from shore
- canoe taking on water
- four people in their early 20s
- they were not intoxicated (hard to believe given their age and choice of activity)
- none had life-jackets
- rescued by firefighters
- assessed by paramedics, deemed fine and released.

For those of you who think Ottawa is a village full of idiots, please add these four to your list. One of the most shocking revelations from this article was that they were assessed by paramedics. If it was up to me I'd have 'rescued' them with a raft of psychiatrists. My gawd people can be steeee-you-pid!

Looking forward....

Let's bury this story in the 2014 archives and tip-toe into 2015 with a little more optimism for both Ottawa and for the human race.