Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

My new desktop 's motherboard came with some software. One of the motherboard features that could be enabled was "BIOS Quickboot". The potential time savings were staggering...

It has five fans! You may remember that my gaming laptop died recently . I hadn't anticipated buying another one for several months, as I was looking into options for a 4-GPU system and had been quoted C$4000 for it. More research revealed that I would probably not want even two graphic cards for a while, and by then I'd probably be getting whatever was on the market at the time. So I settled for just one GPU and capped it at 1 GB because benchmarks show that 2 GB doesn't give you a lot more bang for your buck . The desktop recommended by local North Vancouver, BC, Canada outfit Global Express Communication included a Gigabyte X58A-UD5 motherboard (which has curious innovations like a backup BIOS); a massive Lancool case that hums with five fans and has practically no screws involved in opening it or adding cards and drives; Intel i7 CPU at 3.2 GHz (not overclocked); and XFX Radeon HD 5770 graphic card (1 out of 3 possible on the motherboard). Except for having go...

Yes, you read right: Joe Fortes . That bastion of steak and seafood actually turned out a 4-course gourmet vegan dinner for Earthsave 's Vancouver Meatless Meetup dine out event . Our four-course was... Roasted Red Pepper Puree, truffle gnocchi * Artisan Greens, champagne vinaigrette, sea salt * Smoked Portobello steak, crushed potato, grilled asparagus, pickled red cabbage, fresno chile sauce * Vegan Chocolate Mousse fresh berries Our table was started off with unlimited bowls of baguette slices, and small plates of olive oil and balsamic vinegar reduction sauce (which makes it sweet, like an oyster sauce ). The roasted red pepper puree tasted remarkably like Campbell's Tomato Soup. The salad ("artisan greens") was okay -- Your basic small salad with a delicate vinaigrette. So far, ho hum. There was a remarkably long wait before the mushroom steaks finally came to the table. Happily, it was worth the wait. Curiously, although the large portobellos wer...

Honest to God, this is a real Plenty of Fish ad (woman seeks man...) To be fair, she probably has $$$ too. Whether she'll use any of her own, though, remains to be seen.

I've been horribly focussed lately with computer games, first finishing up Star Wars: Empire At War on Hard Difficulty , and now working on Battle for Middle Earth, Evil Campaign , struggling through Hard Difficulty with the forces of Sauron and Mordor. I was stuck in Emyn Aren with a bunch of orcs and hulking Mumakil but without a good strategy for tackling the map. So I forced myself to slow down and work on something else instead, like responding to my realtor 's request for a letter of reference, which I was only too glad to do because she really was super-nice in helping me find an investment property. I chanced to look at Yahoo.ca's trending topics and clicked on Dido . Now there was a name that I hadn't looked up in a long time. I remembered, of course, those ear worms of her earlier albums like White Flag and Here With Me but just hadn't stopped to listen in a very long time. Helpfully, there is a little player widget on her official website, which som...

Dropped by Burgoo in North Vancouver (Lonsdale, next to Quattro and The District) on Thursday evening for a light dinner. It looks quiet from the outside, but was quite busy in the inside. The waitress at my table suggested Mondays and Wednesdays might be quieter days, but it was chancy. For just a light dinner, I ordered the Wild Mushroom Pate ($8) and Pacific Chowder ($8 for a full portion, $6 for a half portion). The Mushroom Pate was a cold dish, a mound of finely chopped mushroom rather than the traditional slice cut from a slab held together by broth jelly. It was't super-mushroomy tasting, and it came with a bowl of thinly sliced baguette that I thought could have been a bit less toasted and maybe more freshly prepared (i.e. warm). It was crispier than a biscuit, and that always makes taking half-bites (which you had to do because of the size of the slice) tricky because it can fall apart on you. A slightly less toasted one, with maybe a bit of chewiness left in it...

Just saw this on an Ikea flyer on Tuesday, February 15th -- 10 meatballs, mashed potatoes, and sauce for 99 cents! Offer on from February 17th to 20th at IKEA (they have two locations in BC: Coquitlam and Richmond ).

Happy Singles Awareness Day, everybody!

Went snowshoeing for the very first time together, thanks to a dear friend who's been trying to get me out there forever and had an extra pair of snowshoes handy. On the way up Brockton Point (at Mount Seymour ) I noticed patches of snow were yellow. I clued in much later when I noticed the trail seemed popular with dog owners.

After some of the recent heartbreaks I've seen among my friends, I was coincidentally reminded of "Believe" by Cher when a friend of a friend posted the video on Facebook. Dug up a few of her songs on the theme... Say what you want about the facelifts, but she's an awesome entertainer with a distinctive and alluring voice. Funny how the regular sailors are so much more uninhibited in their enthusiasm than the officers... Love this video. In the latter half, Cher has fabulous, lush, wavy black hair -- looks like Wonder Woman. Casting for the protagonist was also interesting -- Not taking the easy way out with a miniskirted hottie, but a tougher-looking shorter gal with strong eastern European features. And in terms of storytelling -- her friend throwing up her hands at the end just says so much. Sad video for a nice song. Could have had Cher's deep and striking voice come more strongly over the video. And although the Flashdance / Dirty Dancing reh...