Squash

Deep-fried squash chips are surprisingly good. A little bit of salt and it’s wonderful. Even with a bit of the stringy inside bits… That stuff crisps up really nicely.

I’ve never been a big fan of squash, but I probably didn’t have the right sort of experiences. Not like a squash-tasting party.

I really liked the Delicata squash. The Butternut squash was really good as well. Buttercup squash, I wasn’t quite as fond of, although I admit is was better steamed than baked.

Baked squash seeds were nice as well. Again, the Delicata wins out. They had a surprising sweetness to them.

And you know, puréed butternut squash with maple syrup and blueberries makes a really nice dessert. I’d never have guessed.

NaBloPoMo: An Update

Well, I’m two posts behind and don’t feel much like writing today.

This sort of thing is probably normal. I was home most of the night last night and couldn’t bring myself to update then either.

At least today I’m writing a post about not wanting to write a post. That has to count for something, even though I’d prefer it didn’t have to come to this.

As a follow-up to the TV post, I got my Visa bill the other day and realized my financial situation isn’t quite as good as I thought it was (having made that impulse Wii purchase late last month). Not that it’s really all that bad, mind you, it’s just not in the $1000 impulse purchase range. Especially considering I just spent $500 on dealing with the raccoon (more than I strictly needed to, but this way it’s less likely other critters will find their way under my porch) and am about to drop $1500 on a laptop just as soon as they start shipping with a draft-n wireless option.

See? More buying stuff.

I’m going to post about the laptop thing later. I’m just not there yet.

Oh yeah, and a rock took a chunk out of my windshield on the 401 on Sunday. That’s a whole ‘nother thing I don’t particularly want to talk about.

I’m hoping tonight gets better.

TVs (or, I Only Ever Talk About Buying Stuff)

I came *this close* (holds up two fingers *really* close together) to making an impulse [LCD TV purchase](http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10084416&catid=23244) today. *This close!*

I actually still might go ahead with it. My TV situation is kinda crappy. And I’ve got people coming over this coming weekend to watch Doctor Who. It’s the 44th anniversary, after all.

Currently, I’ve got two TVs. One is a 20″ SVGA computer monitor (which I bought for $1000 more than a decade ago because it could scan down to Amiga scanning frequencies, thus allowing me to work in resolutions higher than 640×200) that can double as a television. And it doubles as a television very well, except that it’s 20″. 20″ is not very big for lots of people watching stuff.

So when my parents upgraded all their TVs to LCD HDTVs, they gave me their 27″ Sony Trinitron, which, honestly, wasn’t working very well. But hey, free TV. So I lugged it to Waterloo, got it hooked up and it worked great!

It worked great for two days. Then some utility workers were messing around with the transformer thingy in the middle of my cul de sac and cut my power. When it came back on, the TV came on too, oddly, and the top of the screen is kind of squished in and pushed down two inches.

At least you can see the whole picture. I played pretty much all of Super Paper Mario that way.

I’ve been hoping the TV would fix itself. Something similar happened to my parents (prompting them to consider upgrading TVs in the first place), but the TV fixed itself eventually. It’s been almost a month now and I’m not optimistic.

I’ve been holding off on a new TV because I really haven’t been watching stuff, and my goal for having people over is to build a home theatre room in the basement. That, however, has gone almost nowhere. So maybe I should just give into reality and get a cheap, decent LCD.

Continuing Education

I’m getting urges to take a Conestoga College course again.

The continuing education calendar came in the mail this week, and I ended up flipping through it this morning.

The biggest thing holding me back is booking up a weekday evening for some number of weeks. But I’ve decided I’m not going to make a decision today.

I don’t think I’d want to take anything work related or anything. I mean, I *could* probably benefit from some sort of project management training. It just doesn’t sound like much fun. I’m not sure how valuable something like that would be in the end, either.

No, I mean I’m flipping through the “General Interest and Leisure” section. Stuff like “Designing Your Home Garden” and “Alternative Energies – History, Current Status and Outlook.” I really wouldn’t mind taking a cooking or creative writing course.

Some of them are one day seminar things too. That could work. The gardening courses are like that. So are some of the cooking ones, like “Curries” and “Dim Sum”. Not to mention “Reincarnation – Who Were You?”

They have some odd business courses, too. Like “Achieving Professional and Persoanl Success with Emotional Intelligence (EQ)” and “Myers Briggs in the Workplace.” I’m kind of curious.

Computers and Me: Microsoft Windows

Previously on *Computer and Me*:

* [Apple Macintosh](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2007/11/07/computers-and-me-apple-macintosh/)
* [Amiga](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2007/11/02/computers-and-me-part-1/)

It’s probably inevitable that I’d have to go over Windows, but for a while, thinking about what I’d write next, I was starting to think I should skip it. Even though the Twenty Sided post on [the history of Windows](http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1403) is what got me started on this, honestly, what’s there to say? Windows. Yeah.

I grew up with an Amiga. Some friends had PCs and sometimes I’d go over to their house and watch them play games. It wasn’t until nearly the end of highschool where I started to think that maybe DOS-based games were getting better than my Amiga games, but gaming was never a huge priority for me. I wanted to make my computer do cool things.

I didn’t know anybody who was doing cool things with DOS or Windows.

Maybe I was just hanging around with the wrong people.

I was using Windows more and more during co-op terms through university. Even though I’d never owned a Windows machine, I didn’t have much of a problem doing Windows IT support. It just all seemed so… uninspiring.

Of course, I ended up running Windows as my primary operating system anyway. There wasn’t really anything else.

At work, right now, I’m using Microsoft’s .NET framework to build hooks into Microsoft’s developer tools on Microsoft Windows. I get plenty of Microsoft at work. I’ve been coming to the conclusion again that I don’t particularly need it at home.

Windows just doesn’t make me happy. It doesn’t make me particularly angry or offended, either. Not anymore, at least. It’s just kind of there. It’s the quintessential boring, consumer computing platform. It’ll do pretty much anything you need it to do, even if it doesn’t do any of it particularly well. You can use it to do things or make things, but don’t expect it to be easy or fun. And if you do put any effort into it, don’t expect to be thanked for it. Someone else has probably already half-assed something that’s good enough anyway.

I’m coming to the conclusion that I’m happy with the *breadth* of my computing experience, and if I want to challenge myself, I’m going to have to start looking deeper into a particular platform. Going deep into Windows doesn’t seem worthwhile to me. The rewards just aren’t there, either personally or even professionally. I don’t even think becoming a shit-hot Windows coder will even land me the sort of job I’d want. You’d think, given that it’s by far the most widespread desktop platform on the planet, I’d be committing professional suicide, but I don’t think it matters that much.

I have to keep using Windows at work, but I think I’m going to leave it there. I’m comfortable and proficient in it, but if I’m going to do things for fun in my spare time, I’d rather do them elsewhere.