A Few Quick Notes 120

-The weather today has been less than perfect. Aside from being on the cold side we have also had several periods of rain.

-Prior to my departure for St. John’s this spring I had been having problems with my computer speakers. It seems that transporting them to England and back, and then to Montreal and back may not have done them any good. Anyways, I realized that I would need to buy a new set, but had been too lazy to actually do so until this Thursday.

Though I was originally shopping for CD-Rs, when I saw a set of speakers with a subwoofer for $25 I decided to add them to my purchases. As this was within my originally decided upon price range I was excited to acquire the small subwoofer, something that seemed like a bonus item.

So far I have been pretty pleased, though I think that the sound quality is definitely a step down from my last set of speakers. Also, the subwoofer is funnier than it is essential. The only frustrating aspect of the new equipment is that the various cables and wires are shorter than I am used to. This means that the speakers can’t be as far apart as I might like, nor can they be as far away from the data source as I would like.

-While this pre-Thanksgiving Friday was busier than last year, it was still pretty dead. I was able to leave shortly before 10:00 PM, which was quite nice as I was very tired.

-As I was able to leave work early I hoped to be able to get to sleep earlier than normal and then get up early so that I would be able to maximize the amount of time that I could spend at the library and working on a range of school-related tasks.

I was somewhat surprised to wake up and learn that it was after 11:00 AM. This occurrence was particularly surprising, as I had set the alarm to go off shortly after 9:00 AM. Upon inspection I learned that instead of setting the alarm 12 hours off, as is my usual problem, the radio volume had been turned off. Fortunately, as I was well rested I managed to get going more quickly than normal and accomplished a reasonable amount of work.

-Since arriving in Montreal I have tried to buy my coffee at La Vielle Europe both because I have enjoyed their product but also to support a local business. Unfortunately a few days ago my supply ran out and I knew that I didn’t have time to make the trip up St. Laurent.

While shopping at Lobos I noticed that they had a range of coffee for what seemed like reasonable prices. I chose what I thought would be the most mundane and least exotic of their coffees. What I ended up with claimed to be both Brazilian and “Made in Lebanon,” a contradiction that I didn’t make much of at the time.

Shortly after returning I began to prepare to brew my first batch of the new coffee. My first realization was that the coffee was very finely ground, a feature that was not made apparent on the packaging, and something that typically doesn’t work well with my percolator.

Once the coffee finished brewing I noticed that the smell wasn’t quite what I was used to, actually it didn’t really smell like coffee at all. The taste wasn’t much better. The only aspect of the new coffee that resembled coffee that I am used to was the colour, a dark, full-bodied brown.

Today I decided that I would move onto a more traditional coffee and purchased can of a name brand pre-ground coffee. Surprisingly, the name brand was cheaper than the store brand, and the deciding factor in my purchase. Fortunately, this second purchase was much closer to what I was looking for. Maybe in the next few days I will be able to make it back to La Vielle Europe to buy more of their product.

-Upon returning from the library this afternoon I started preparing food. I started with a pie, making the crust and obtaining the filling from a can. The extra crust was used to make cinnamon rolls.

Once the pie was in the oven I started to scramble some ground beef.

While the beef was cooking I started making a cranberry salad.

Once the beef finished cooking I removed what I would need for pinwheels and turned the rest into taco meat.

The pinwheels were the final dish of the evening, as well as what I consumed for dinner. As a late night snack I may have a piece or two of the pie.