Random Musings and Nicknacks

I’m starting to collect the best lines I’ve heard in the Olympic coverage so far…

“I thought America was patriotic, but we’re nothing [compared to Canada]”

- Shani Davis, American gold medalist

“What do you want to say to the people of Canmore now?”

“Hi”

–Mike Robertson, interviewed after his snowboarding Silver medal win

“Ouch, that’s not a good start”

–Commentators stating the obvious when a french alpine skier falls just a few meters out of the gate

“And you thought you wouldn’t see women’s ski jumping in Vancouver”

–Commentator when one of the alpine skiers spends 60m in the air over the last hill (unfortunately she crashed on landing)

Funny that the first big article I find in the New York Times, happens to be about the one thing that we *know* will catch people by surprise

If Meals Won Medals

By SAM SIFTON
Published: February 2, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia

AS breakfasts go, it’s not much to look at, just a small plastic container of maple-glazed smoked salmon bits. There is a sourdough roll to go with it, and a cup of hot coffee with cream.

Eating them together here on a dock in False Creek, though, with low clouds scudding over a hedge of green-glass buildings across the water, past Stanley Park in the distance, is to experience something of the solemn, awestruck joy that the philosopher Edmund Burke called the sublime. Above the skyline, to the north and west, mountains rise into a darkening sky as bathtub ferryboats chug past beneath them on still saltwater the color of slate. Gulls come close, beg for scraps. They won’t get any.

Vancouver is a terrific place to eat. It is diverse and exciting in its culinary offerings. But a simple breakfast taken on the pier outside the Granville Island Public Market is an important stop for any wayfaring food pilgrim. The fish — ruddy and cold-smoked, a taste of British Columbia for centuries, best purchased at Longliner Seafoods in the main shed — is a sweet-sour-salty baseline from which we can measure the region’s best meals.

I was on the dock in late January, an advance man for the more than two million people organizers say will descend on Vancouver and its environs for the 2010 Winter Games, which run from Feb. 12 to 28. While in the city and its suburbs, I fed as if in danger of imminent execution. And I was able to confirm earlier reconnaissance: Vancouver is among the best eating towns in the history of the Winter Games.

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Teens think blogging is about as cool as Rick Astley hits

Blogging is falling out of favor among the young’uns these days as they move to quicker-moving social networking sites. At the same time, older adults are getting into blogging and teens still aren’t hot on Twitter, at least according to the latest report from the Pew Internet and American Life project….

Lunchtime Walk
Taken and processed on the iPhone

The camera capabilities of the iPhone have a lot of attention, especially considering it is a lower resolution camera compared to is competition, and yet it seems to outperform those better cameras.

This photo, which I took while out for a lunchtime walk, is a perfect example of why. White swans against a dark river is a classic nightmare exposure, and look at how the iPhone handled it. If you look you will notice the body of the right swan is blown out, but the rocks are as dark as they can without losing all the detail – this seems about the perfect exposure for this dynamic range.

Too many cameras would have lost the swans entirely.

So it happened as expected today, and Apple made a huge announcement. They have opened the iBook store.

Now I know what you’re thinking – that wasn’t the announcement, the announcement was a tablet computer called the “iPad”. I respectfully submit that you are wrong.
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Boy do I hate being outsmarted. Especially when it is by someone who has no right to outsmart me.
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Only 6 weeks after we got back, I’ve finally finished putting up all the stories written during our trip (there are some other notes, but I’ll probably save them for the book).

Looking back, I think I need to count how many words I wrote for this vacation – I think I’ve got a personal record here!

I discovered that when I first put it up, “The Cheescake Affair” had been cut off (it didn’t actually include any cheesecake). That has been fixed now.

Editor’s Note: There are sentiments in this post that appear to have been superseded by current events that originated in Amsterdam, where we flew out of; I have left it unaltered as a memory of what it felt like at the time – I also think it emphasizes even more just how sophisticated the latest attempt actually was

To hold you over until the meal comes

After touring the Mediterranean, returning to Barcelona felt almost like going home – it was familiar, we knew the layout. It also reinforced just how nice Barcelona and its quirks are.
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Valetta Harbour, Malta

I’ll openly admit it – I underestimated Malta. From the start I had considered it the poor stepchild of our trip. I looked at the map before we started out and decided it was obvious – the reason why we were stopping there was to break up the trip home. After all what does Malta have? Aside from the fact that for some reason their Falcons are famous, and after 500 years they still haven’t forgiven Turkey for throwing their ancestors out, there doesn’t seem to be much.

This is why you take a cruise, you end up going places you weren’t interested in, then you wonder if you want to leave – Malta is beautiful.
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This ship is beginning to make me feel a bit paranoid. My stomach has been just slightly off for the morning, however between the way we were bounced around for hours on Egyptian roads for the last two days, and the fact that today the swell is producing whitecaps and the boat has definite movement, it is probably just a bit of motion sickness. It doesn’t keep me from worrying, though.

We were sitting out on the back deck last night talking to an older couple originally from Norway, now residing in Boston. They had spent the day exploring Alexandria, but had cancelled the trip to Cairo the day before, because the lady had been so sick they couldn’t do it. She told us she has never washed her hands so many times in her life, but still came down with the illness. She is beginning to wonder if it was the apple tea in Turkey, because she had talked to three other people who also got sick and also had apple tea (it sure makes our choice of Raki look smarter). Now I’m wondering if the coffee I had in Egypt was a mistake – you can never know if they boiled the water enough.

Anyway, enough about illness. There is a much more important topic to discuss these days: the cheesecake crisis. Ling is quite annoyed with the ship, she has given it several chances in case it was an off-day, but to no avail. Apparently the cheesecake is not cheesy enough here.

You have no idea how much it annoys her to have cheesecake available, but not good enough to eat. She’s actually turned to other deserts to try and work off her frustration, but it is no good. Only cheesecake will do, and she can’t have it. Our only hope is that Malta makes a good one.