Howard’s Blog

So I just wanna start by noting that the Pakistani military is now being led by General Ashfaq. Seriously. Whatever happened to ‘Don’t ask don’t tell’????

Anyway…last year in the fall I finally got around to trying to make a pumpkin pie. Problem number 1 – no pumpkin pie filling in Austria. Problem number 2, the pumpkins here are more like rope than pumpkin – inedible. The squash is good tho(the same word is used for both here – although what we refer to as a pumpkin is sometimes referred to as a halloween pumpkin) and I finally found a recipe that works…from Mc’Calls Cooking School Magazine.
Ingredients:
1 Piecrust

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed(I have never seen a recipe where is wasn’t packed)
5 eggs(yes, 5)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg( I use a bit more)
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound(2 cups) pumpkin(boiled until soft if you’re using fresh -and you should be)
1 cup heavy cream

Optional Topping:
3/4 cup heavy cream, whipped with 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
walnut halves

The rest is easy – beat the filling ingredients until smooth, pour most of the filling into a 9 inch pie plate – with crust(not all of it, or you’ll spill the filling putting it into the oven -guess how I know?), put it into a preheated 180°C Oven, pour the remaining filling in, and nake for about 50 minutes. chill overnight(at least 4 hours)
yummy.
And….back to Canadian music. I had a conversation with a guy at work about Anne Murray yesterday. Really.
Here she is singing a Kenny Loggins song:

Time for a break from the Canadian music – why? ‘cuz Ryan wants more music goodies like the Sam Cooke tune. The bad news is, there is nobody like Sam Cooke. There is also nobody like Etta James.

I spent last week at the Oracle University, and obviously got caught up in a conversation regarding the Vancouver airport taser incident – all I can say that the RCMP have gone downhill over the years – it’s hard to have any kind of respect for that kind of policing.
Anyway, one of the guys in the course brought a dvd for me on the last day of the course, and I can highly recommend it – it’s called Orwell Rolls in his Grave, I think it’s from 2003…worth a look.
Here are the Groove Kings

One of my very first albums was a K-Tel collection with a ton of good music, including Johnny Nash’s ‘I can see clearly now’, and it’s been a favorite of mine ever since. Rarely do I prefer a cover version to the original, but in this case, I have to go with a hometown(Halifax, Nova Scotia) girl’s version – Holly Cole.

Anytime I’m in London I try to make it to a big record store to check out the charts – which bear no resemblance to the Austrian charts(Charts here tend to fill up with Brittney types), and buy cd’s I’ve never heard of. The last time I was there I bought the number 3 on the charts – Econoline Crush – a band I’d never heard of, and didn’t know until recently that they were Canadian…go figure.

I just can’t bring myself to let that last video stay on top any longer.
It never ceases to amaze me how much…stuff.. you find on YouTube..but between the pieces of crap, there is a ton of music, good and bad, new and old. So for the benefit of the Europeans, who only get to hear the Canadians who MadeItBigInAmerica™, I think I’ll post a few links to videos that didn’t quite make it across the pond. Besides, we’re having Canadian weather today in Vienna, and I don’t want to go outside…
Let’s start with Blue Rodeo, good despite coming out of Toronto

And on this day in 1985, the best hockey goalie I’ve ever seen smoked his modified 930 into a schoolhouse wall in New Jersey…and died the next day(The hospital kept him alive until his father could arrive from Sweden to say goodbye) at the brutally young age of 26. Pelle Lindbergh.

Es tut mir fast weh dieses Video zu verlinken, und ich würde es auch nicht für jeden tun… aber hier ist noch ein Mallorca Klassiker
Das rote Pferd

I finally got tired of waiting for a half-decent calendar sync solution to show up, so today I’m starting to build one – after long seconds of deliberation, it’ll be Open Groupware on Fedora Linux. We’ll see.
Yesterday I made these cookies, and they are awesome. Today I’m eating them .

On this day in 1955 the Vienna State Opera reopened after having been destroyed in WW2.
Celebrating birthdays today are:
1916 – Walter Cronkite
1924 – Howie Meeker
1972 – Luis Figo

Deaths on this day:
1847 – Felix Mendelssohn
1955 – Cy Young

Tip of the day – spilling a glass of milk on your keyboard is not worth crying about but 2 days later the smell might bring tears to your eyes…

And for your extreme listening pleasure, Sam Cooke, one of the all time greats.