Earlier this summer, while Neil and I were busy shopping at the Birch Run, Michigan outlet mall, we ran across some energy drink concentrate. While the product was clearly intended to be sold as part of a carbonated water beverage system we decided that we could just buy the concentrated syrup and try mixing it with store-bought club soda. Nonetheless, we were both somewhat taken with the idea of homemade carbonated water based drinks, something that was a relatively large part of our childhood.
Last night, almost a month after our trip to the outlet mall, I came home to find that a SodaStream home carbonating machine had been purchased for our apartment. As you might expect, I was quite excited by this turn of events. When I looked in the fridge I discovered two new bottles. It looked like one was filled with home-made energy drink. It looked like the other was about a half liter of club soda. As I didn't know exactly what was going on at the time I left both of these bottles un-sampled.
This morning I finally got a chance to get the run-down on the new acquisition. Apparently, this was purchased as a gift for Neil for his birthday (which, in retrospect, makes a great deal of sense). I was also given a quick run-down on the operation of the machine, which is pretty straight forward. The only bad news was that the energy drink concentrate that we purchased in the US, even though it is from the same company, is not available in Canada yet (we are wondering if we can order it from the US site?).
Anyway, since the acquisition of the machine last night we have really be going through quite a bit of carbonated water, though no more than we would if we had 60 liters of club soda on the kitchen floor. For those of you who are curious, we have consumed at least one (though maybe two) liter of energy drink, one liter of grapefruit pop, and at least three liters of club soda. While I don't imagine that we will be able to keep this pace up forever, I do suspect that as big consumers of fluids that we will be able to maintain a relatively steady pace over the coming days, weeks, and months.
For those of you who are interested, Wikipedia has a neat article outlining SodaStream's somewhat surprising history.
Showing posts with label Wikipedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wikipedia. Show all posts
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
A happening 24 hours in Halifax
Yesterday afternoon Neil and Rebecca returned to St. John's for a week of high-level math and family fun. Almost as soon as they left the peninsula I put myself in extrovert mode and started attending a series of public performances.
I started things off with a nice comedy show.
Several weeks ago I noticed that our neighbourhood blues bar, Bearly's, plays host to a weekly Wednesday night comedy show called Laughter Burner. What made me really want to give this show a shot was that it is hosted former Stop Podcasting Yourself guests, Dylan Rhymer and Ben Mills.
After several weeks of conflicting squash sessions, I was finally able find myself free on a Wednesday evening last night. Not only was I free, but I was also able to talk Jeannette into attending the show with me. At about 8:00 we made our way over (as that was the advertised starting time), though it turns out that we were there quite a while before things started. Actually, I am pretty sure that we were the first people there for the show (though there were a few others in the bar for standard bar related activities). Fortunately we were able to pass the time with a friendly discussion about the qualities of the actors who have portrayed James Bond and the relative merits of their portrayals of James Bond.
The show, which consisted of a number of short acts puntucated by draws for crappy prizes, was great. Aside from the hosts, we were also both particularly taken with the final act of the night, Peter White, a fellow sufferer of kidney stones. Though neither Jeannette nor I was lucky enough to win one of the sets of sub-par prizes (which always include a sample of cheese), we were both convinced that the show was worth our time and worth visiting again. Hopefully we will be able to make it again next week (or at least to another show in the near future).
Much to my surprise, the live performance theme was continued today when I met Jeannette (who provided the following photos) for lunch and we happened upon a jazz band performing next to the ferry terminal. After a few minutes we started to get the sense that the band we were seeing, 6:20 Jazz Lab from Mobile Alabama, was something of a religious group. The emphasis on spirituals was quite striking, as was the fact that the band had a "drama department." It seems that the drama side of the group was used to provide either dancers or costumed characters to match the theme of the song.
Based on some Googling, I got the sense that this band is in town for a number of Christianity-themed performances. Unfortunately I couldn't find a proper website for them, or a real explanation about what they were doing on the waterfront today.
Alongside this group, and seemingly somehow related to them, was former major leaguer Bernie Carbo. At the time I had no idea who Bernie Carbo was, or why he might be manning a personal appearance stand next to the Halifax harbour.
After I returned to the apartment I was able to learn that Carbo, most famous for his pinch hit home-run for the Boston Red Sox in game 6 of the 1975 World Series tied the game and preceded Carlton Fisk's game-winning 12th inning home run, suffered from a number of addictions before finding solace in Christianity. It seems that Carbo, after becoming a hairdresser, now spends much of his time with church related activities.
While hunting down information about Carbo and the 6:20 Jazz Lab I happened to swing by the TD Halifax Jazz Festival website and see that there was a free Klezmer performance at 2:30 this afternoon by the Halifax group Der Heisser. Because I didn't have anything scheduled for this afternoon I decided that I would try to swing by the jazz festival main tent and take in some of this show. Though I didn't stay for the entire show (it was a little hot for me), I did really enjoy the part of the show that I saw.
These three performances were really quite useful as I was once again able to confirm that I am really only interested in seeing performances that are indoors and that have proper seating. Having to brave anything less than ideal conditions really impedes my ability to enjoy a performance. That being said, I am considering attending another free jazz festival performance tomorrow afternoon.
I started things off with a nice comedy show.
Several weeks ago I noticed that our neighbourhood blues bar, Bearly's, plays host to a weekly Wednesday night comedy show called Laughter Burner. What made me really want to give this show a shot was that it is hosted former Stop Podcasting Yourself guests, Dylan Rhymer and Ben Mills.
After several weeks of conflicting squash sessions, I was finally able find myself free on a Wednesday evening last night. Not only was I free, but I was also able to talk Jeannette into attending the show with me. At about 8:00 we made our way over (as that was the advertised starting time), though it turns out that we were there quite a while before things started. Actually, I am pretty sure that we were the first people there for the show (though there were a few others in the bar for standard bar related activities). Fortunately we were able to pass the time with a friendly discussion about the qualities of the actors who have portrayed James Bond and the relative merits of their portrayals of James Bond.
The show, which consisted of a number of short acts puntucated by draws for crappy prizes, was great. Aside from the hosts, we were also both particularly taken with the final act of the night, Peter White, a fellow sufferer of kidney stones. Though neither Jeannette nor I was lucky enough to win one of the sets of sub-par prizes (which always include a sample of cheese), we were both convinced that the show was worth our time and worth visiting again. Hopefully we will be able to make it again next week (or at least to another show in the near future).
Much to my surprise, the live performance theme was continued today when I met Jeannette (who provided the following photos) for lunch and we happened upon a jazz band performing next to the ferry terminal. After a few minutes we started to get the sense that the band we were seeing, 6:20 Jazz Lab from Mobile Alabama, was something of a religious group. The emphasis on spirituals was quite striking, as was the fact that the band had a "drama department." It seems that the drama side of the group was used to provide either dancers or costumed characters to match the theme of the song.
Based on some Googling, I got the sense that this band is in town for a number of Christianity-themed performances. Unfortunately I couldn't find a proper website for them, or a real explanation about what they were doing on the waterfront today.
Alongside this group, and seemingly somehow related to them, was former major leaguer Bernie Carbo. At the time I had no idea who Bernie Carbo was, or why he might be manning a personal appearance stand next to the Halifax harbour.
After I returned to the apartment I was able to learn that Carbo, most famous for his pinch hit home-run for the Boston Red Sox in game 6 of the 1975 World Series tied the game and preceded Carlton Fisk's game-winning 12th inning home run, suffered from a number of addictions before finding solace in Christianity. It seems that Carbo, after becoming a hairdresser, now spends much of his time with church related activities.
While hunting down information about Carbo and the 6:20 Jazz Lab I happened to swing by the TD Halifax Jazz Festival website and see that there was a free Klezmer performance at 2:30 this afternoon by the Halifax group Der Heisser. Because I didn't have anything scheduled for this afternoon I decided that I would try to swing by the jazz festival main tent and take in some of this show. Though I didn't stay for the entire show (it was a little hot for me), I did really enjoy the part of the show that I saw.
These three performances were really quite useful as I was once again able to confirm that I am really only interested in seeing performances that are indoors and that have proper seating. Having to brave anything less than ideal conditions really impedes my ability to enjoy a performance. That being said, I am considering attending another free jazz festival performance tomorrow afternoon.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Chin-ups reset
Because I have so much time on my hands, last night I decided to go to the great reference sources Wikipedia and YouTube to get more information on chin-ups and pull-ups.
One of the first things that I learned is that both pull-ups and chin-ups, as frequently defined in these sources, imply that the individual goes all the way down until their arms are straight, not just to a 90 degree angle (which is what we had been doing). This means that I have been significantly over counting the number of chin-ups I am capable of. So my count went from 27, which sounded rather respectable, to a paltry 7.
Secondly, I was able to finally figure out the difference between pull-ups and chin-ups. It seems that pull-ups are the version of the exercise done with one's palms facing away from one's body. Chin-ups are the version of the exercise with the palms facing towards the body.
Thirdly, this is one of the amazing pull-up/chin-up videos available on YouTube:
[Embedded Video]
Blog-off Score
Neil: 0
Cameron: 30
One of the first things that I learned is that both pull-ups and chin-ups, as frequently defined in these sources, imply that the individual goes all the way down until their arms are straight, not just to a 90 degree angle (which is what we had been doing). This means that I have been significantly over counting the number of chin-ups I am capable of. So my count went from 27, which sounded rather respectable, to a paltry 7.
Secondly, I was able to finally figure out the difference between pull-ups and chin-ups. It seems that pull-ups are the version of the exercise done with one's palms facing away from one's body. Chin-ups are the version of the exercise with the palms facing towards the body.
Thirdly, this is one of the amazing pull-up/chin-up videos available on YouTube:
[Embedded Video]
Blog-off Score
Neil: 0
Cameron: 30
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