A lot of Americans seem to have an inherent suspiciousness of all things Canadian. I know, I know…they say “eh” all the time, they refer to round pieces of ham as “bacon”, and they stole the term “dollar” from us to use for their currency. But let’s face the facts: if McCain wins in November, we all may have to start thinking about heading north, so it’s good to find out a bit about the country and its traditions. Some of you may think of Canada as a larger version of Alaska, but I assure you there is more to it. Let’s start with the simple things. 

I was in Montreal about a year ago on vacation. It was a short vacation, only a few days. However, I did have one unforgettable experience. I was in a small lunch joint, eating a sandwich and fries. It was a crowded restaurant, and you had to share a table with other folks. My table mates were speaking French, but one of them turned to me and asked for “le vinaigre”. When I gave him a blank look, he pointed to the glass bottle at the end of the table. I passed it to him and watched with amazement as he sprinkled the clear liquid on his fries.

Vinegar on fries? Seemed like a crazy idea to me. Sure, I know ketchup has vinegar in there. And there are those salt and vinegar potato chips. I stuck to my Heinz and forgot about the incident, but recently its been creeping back into my conscience. One day, faced with a plateful of fries and an empty ketchup bottle, I raided my closet and managed to find a bottle of vinegar. To my surprise, it tasted pretty good…cleaner and simpler than ketchup.

Give it a try, eh?

As the challenges of living with a young child have tested my daily endurance, I have become increasingly reliant on supplements to my usual one cup coffee habit to make it through the day. There is a maxim about lemons and lemonade, but I don’t particularly like lemonade, so I’ve applied to rule to coffee. If I’m going to consume northwards of three cups, they might as well be good ones. And I might as well learn something along the way. I’ve ordered up a large variety of beans from Sweet Marias. The remaining challenge is how to brew the stuff.

The French press (or should it be “freedom press” now) has been touted as a way to fully extract the range of flavor from the bean, but my initial experiments have come up a bit short. One particularly unsatisfying aspect of the experience has been the rate at which the coffee seems to go from drinkable temperature to uncomfortably lukewarm with the accompanying blandness that seems to emerge when coffee has been sitting around too long.

As there’s no stove in the office, I’ve used the hot water tap from our water dispenser to brew the coffee. I hoped, though in the back of my mind I suspected it was a foolish hope, that it would be perfectly calibrated for brewing coffee (200 degree Fahrenheit). I realized that there is only one way to know for sure, so today, I came to work prepared:

Just as I had suspected: 46 degrees too cold. Now the only question is: how crazy will my coworkers think I am if I bring in an electric kettle just to get the right temperature hot water?

Getting older. It’s inevitable. Each year I notice some new change in my behavior or attitude that I can attribute to nothing other than getting older.

Housing prices in Massachusetts being what they are, I find myself living in a pleasant condo unit. It’s a nice place. The entire building was gut-renovated prior to my moving in, and it still has that new building feeling. The building, originally a large Victorian, has now been converted into 9 condo units. When I originally moved in, I loved the idea of having so many close neighbors. If anything, it was considerably more private than the arrangements I had during college and much of medical school. Even during the several years prior to moving in, I occupied a unit in a large apartment complex.

And it was fine. At least for the first couple years. But now the movie noises that seep through the floor from the unit upstairs are getting old. Really old. I would say “like, John McCain old” but let’s keep politics out of this. Anyway, if it’s not the booming from what sounds like war movies upstairs, it’s the neighbor’s smoke alarm going off for the 15th time this month. Or the occasional party down the hall. I’m sure the feelings are mutual, too. The neighbors probably get tired of hearing me wail “Stop and Staaaare” while fumbling with guitar chords but I they can no more blame me for that than I can blame them. There’s a need for space that comes with age. And I need it. Soon.

It’s enough to drive me to the suburbs.

I remember seeing a guy on TV a couple years back who was complaining about noise from car stereos. He was a middle-aged, moderately overweight fellow and seemed to take himself too seriously. He was part of an organization called Noise Free America and provided my wife and I with a several good laughs.

But I’m not laughing now, no sireee. I’m filling out the membership form.

I’m an internet junkie, I admit it. Like a drug addict, I need a constant stream of internet flowing into my brain or I start to undergo withdrawal. It doesn’t even really matter what I’m reading, but that steady stream of new information keeps me going. I knew it was bad several years ago when my home internet connection, a cable model, stopped working one evening. After a couple hours of internal debate, I broke down and went back back to work just to get an hour of surfing in before returning home.

You think that’s bad? It’s gotten worse. Since I got my iPhone, the internet is basically sitting in my pocket, its siren song only an arms length away. I find myself almost unconsciously reaching into my pocket to pull out my phone whenever there is some downtime (an elevator ride, a walk down the hall, or even a lull in the coversation). It’s a bad habit and I know I have to stop, but at least I can admit the problem.

I normally hate traveling to hotels because inevitably there is some horrendous internet setup where the company tries to gouge addicts such as myself. Typical prices seem to be $10 a day, meaning that within the course of a typical stay I’ve spent as much on access as I spend in a typical month (and, of course, my home internet fees don’t magically disappear during this time). The worst I’ve seen was in Barcelona, where truly unlimited access from within the hotel cost 27 euros. Even I had to draw the line there…with the declining dollar, that’s just criminal.

I arrived in Chicago for a conference last night and was surprised to see the Holiday Inn advertising “Free Highspeed Wireless” access for all its guests. I was overjoyed, but as is typical with these offers, there’s always a catch. They say you get what you pay for, and that’s pretty much what I’ve been able to eke out of this service. The access point, ironically named “stayonline”, drops my connection every few minutes. When I manage to get a signal, the experience allows me to reminisce about the “good old days” of 2400-bps modems. Yes, it’s slow.

Maybe I’ll be forced to actually go out and explore the city.

With my iPhone close at hand, of course.

Wilting Over Waffles – New York Times: “‘The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. … I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. … You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!’”

Blogs from CNN.com: “‘Obama is an old town and needs a second wind. Maybe this is exactly the new
spirit our town needs.’”

In Tuesday’s Contests, a Party Divided – washingtonpost.com: “‘Now listen, son. Just listen,’ Eddie Jr. interjected. ‘It’s not like every young person down here is supporting Obama. I mean, what about my grandson, your nephew? He’s a huge Clinton supporter.’

‘Dad. He’s only 8.’

‘Okay. That’s true. But right now, we’re taking any support we can get.’”

Clinton may challenge Texas vote rules – Yahoo! News: “Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign has raised the possibility of a challenge to Texas’ primary and caucus rules just days before the contest, drawing a warning against legal action from the state’s Democratic Party.”

Well, I suppose if you can’t win legitimately…

The Audacity of Hopelessness – New York Times: “The insults continued on Tuesday night when a surrogate preceding Mrs. Clinton onstage at an Ohio rally, Tom Buffenbarger of the machinists’ union, derided Obama supporters as “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies.” Even as he ranted, exit polls in Wisconsin were showing that Mr. Obama had in fact won that day among voters with the least education and the lowest incomes. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Obama received the endorsement of the latte-drinking Teamsters.”

It should be noted that, while I do drive a Prius and drink lattes, I do not wear Birkenstock’s or have a trust-fund. Just for the record.

This is why it was a bad idea of Clinton to play the plagiarism card…

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Clinton faces claims of borrowed language « – Blogs from CNN.com