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What food(s) did you hate as a child, but enjoy as an adult?

Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
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I have always been characterized as a picky eater. And I think I still am. However, I have discovered a few things that I disliked as a child but thoroughly enjoy now.

The biggest one that I can’t believe I never even tried, was stuffing. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas I would stay as far away from it as I could, and refused to even try it. Why? Mostly because it looked disgusting. Something about soggy bread and celery stuffed inside a turkey just didn’t strike my fancy. Then, several months ago (years ago?) Mae made some Chicken Helper with stuffing, and I loved it. It smelled good, so I tried it, and now I eat as much as I can stand do at holiday gatherings.

Another thing I never ate as a child was Chinese food. I remember going to North China by the Maplewood Mall and ordering a cheeseburger while the rest of my family got Chinese food. I choose to blame my distaste on chow mein. It, much like stuffing, is not particularly eye pleasing, and also has celery in it. I do find it strange that I clearly remember eating handfuls of chow mein noodles as a child, but never chow mein. And I don’t eat chow mein noodles now. I find it strange how I didn’t like Chinese food, but most of the dishes are very basic. Like my absolute favorite, beef and broccoli over white rice. I also enjoy most varieties of chicken, and chicken fried rice. I have, however always enjoyed wontons. They work nicely in place of french fries.

And there are some things that I enjoyed as a child, and will continue to enjoy for the rest of my life. Like cheese sandwiches.

Filed under: blog block, life — Tags: blog block, childhood, food, life —

What Was The First Movie You Saw On DVD?

Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 1:42 am
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I’m as shocked as you are to see that I’m posting for a second time in 24 hours, trust me.

In case the title wasn’t easy enough to understand; I pose a simple question to you: What was the first movie that you ever saw in DVD format?

Way back in 1997, nearly 13 years ago the Digital Versatile Disc (or Digital Video Disc) was unleashed. DVD players were very expensive, as were the movies themselves. About two years later, my parents were divorced, and my dad had started buying some of the things that he always wanted, but my mom never let him get. One of which was a new computer. A sweet IBM Aptiva, with a BLAZING 300MHz Intel Pentium II processor and 128MB of RAM. It featured both a CD/DVD-ROM, and a separate CD-R/RW burner. Of course this meant a DVD must be obtained, and immediately played on the computer, right?

After a trip to the store, two brand spanking new and surprisingly strange movies were purchased. Twister, and True Lies. After opening the package, inspecting the disc, gawking at the thought that this disc contained a movie, my dad and I watched Twister. On the 14″ CRT display, sitting on kitchen chairs in the computer room. It seems funny to think about now that DVD players have become so cheap and common, but that’s what it took to be on the bleeding edge of technology in those days.

So what about you? What was your first DVD experience? Reply with your answer and/or a link to your post sharing your experience.

Lastly, a bit of related trivia: Twister was the first feature length Hollywood film to be released in DVD format, and the last film to be released on HD-DVD format.

Filed under: blog block, life — Tags: childhood, computer, dad, gadget, life, memories, movie, technology —

I Got 99 Problems…

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 1:04 am
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But A Breach Ain’t One.

No, seriously though. When was the last time I made a blog post? I would wager it was some time in June. Too many pages of “Daily Tweets” to sift through. Does this mean I’m not posting Daily Tweet digests anymore? Absolutely not. Deal with it.

I did discover today, however, that someone tried (unsuccessfully) to hijack my Wordpress installation, and I have since upgraded to the latest version. It seems all they did was change the formatting for my permlinks. I searched the posts table in my database for anything fishy, and didn’t find anything. No new administrator accounts, but I did change my password just to be sure. So if you haven’t updated your Wordpess install lately, I would suggest it. Not like they could make it any easier for you.

I installed the hard drive in my LaCinema last night after work. It shipped driveless, and I’ve been watching stuff via the USB host on the front from a flash drive. It is now packing a 1TB SATA drive, along with nearly 250 hours of video. May transfer some music on there too to see how it plays back and see what it displays on the screen.

I am not even going to attempt an update on life, because there have been literally hundreds of tweets to take the place of that. But I will try to update more. No matter how many times I say that, it never seems to work.

To all of you on the Livejournal, I apologize for not reading my Friends List for several months. I hope you are all doing well, feel free to comment and let me know how you’re doing. You might even be able to trick me into reading your updates again. LJ folk, or anyone really, feel free to prompt with with a topic to write about. It would be a great way to get Blog Block going again.

Also of note, it’s officially 2010, and baseball season is now only 3 months away. Which also means that Target Field will be opening in just under 100 days, and outdoor baseball will return to Minnesota.

Filed under: life — Tags: baseball, blog block, life, lj, twins, twitter, update, wordpress —

Bag Of Random Crap

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 12:31 am
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I have ordered a few items from Woot.com in the past, and I have always been very satisfied with the items that I’ve received. On April 1st, by a pure stroke of luck, I managed to snag one of the most elusive items on Woot, a Random Bag Of Crap.

Bags Of Crap typically contain.. random crap. However, they are known to include some more valuable items. Basically you pay $3.00 (+$5 shipping) and hope for the best. I managed to get one despite the trickery on April Fools Day trickery which was $3.00 +$1,000,000 shipping with a coupon code for the normal $5 shipping. Several days later, my Bag Of Crap arrived. More like a box really, but whatever.

Contents:
2x “YAY! It’s Broccoli” t-shirts – $10.00 each
1x Oval Red Metal Bucket – ~$3.00
1x Lava Firefly Lamp – $29.99
1x Memorex External 20x Lightscribe DVD Recorder – $99.99

So my $8 investment netted me about $150 worth of stuff. I’m probably going to give the lamp to my sister, and I may sell the DVD burner. My laptop has one in it already, and I have an external DVD burner around here somewhere.

Filed under: life — Tags: internet, life, money, woot —