Hit the Bricks

Actually, hit the briquettes. I know that 90% of people who have a backyard or a deck now own a propane BBQ and that's great. I love BBQ. I try to get on the grill throughout the year and I have some very strong opinions about which gas BBQs are the best (not Weber). The convenience of the gas grill has enabled people to grill year round, even when you're only plumping up a couple of ballpark franks. But in the rush for convenience, we've lost a little flavour.

Re-enter the charcoal grill, or as I like to call it, the weekend grill. Summer weekend days are meant to be sipped, not chugged. The charcoal grill is the perfect compliment to the patio lifestyle. It takes a little longer to heat up and once it's going you can't just shut it down, but I assure you, eating a burger will be a much more visceral sensation when said burger is cooked on a charcoal grill. It is not a replacement for your gas unit but it is a great compliment.

Weber still makes the grills that you know from the 70's. I don't think they do the big round grill in a burnt orange anymore, but the basic mechanics of the metal ball o' flame are the same. They are well built and they don't take up too much space. There are three models that you should consider for this summer's BBQ season. The One Touch Gold, One Touch Silver and the Smokey Joe (there are Silver and Gold for the Smokey Joe, but the only difference is a lid lock).

The One Touch comes in 18.5" or 22.5" configurations and the Smokey Joe is 14.5". There is not much difference between the Silver and Gold except that the Gold has an ash catcher for much easier clean up. The Gold is the one pictured above. The Smokey Joe has no legs so you will need a surface on which to place it. After considering how much grill space you need, price should be your primary determining factor.

In my opinion, the One Touch Silver 18.5" unit is the best value at $89.99 CDN.

Kick Ass

My cousin Elana moved out to B.C. a while ago and started roasting organic coffee out of her house. It has since grown to become the largest organic and fair trade coffee producer in Canada. I must confess that I'm not much of a coffee drinker but I always have a pack of Kicking Horse Coffee beans in my freezer and they always go over very well with guests.

Kicking Horse buys all of their beans from organic coffee farming co-operatives and roast the beans at high altitude (3,000' above sea level) in their home town of Invermere B.C. Coffee is grown at high altitude and Kicking Horse claims the symmetry of roasting it way above sea level contributes to its unique taste.

At my house we usually keep a couple of bags of their Kick Ass ($11.95 /1Lb) dark roast variety (if I'm drinking coffee, it's this stuff), 454 Horse Power ($11.95 /1Lb) dark roast and their Three Sisters ($11.95 /1Lb) medium roast variety. They have quite a few roasts now including some international roasts from Africa and South America and have recently added a line of tea.

I'm not just posting this to support my cousin. If you've had the coffee, then you know and you can vouch for this. It's good stuff. You can find it in the organic sections of most grocery stores, by looking up local retailers on their website or by purchasing it directly online. It really is Kick Ass stuff.

Don't Give In To Your Surges

If you have electronic equipment, specifically a desktop computer or high end musical equipment, you should have it connected to a surge protector. Surge protectors regulate the electricity coming in from your local utility in order to ensure that your equipment will not receive any sudden spikes. Spikes can really mess up your gear.

Your traditional surge protectors look just like the power bars that we all know, except maybe a little bit chunkier. Since these days a lot of equipment have built in circuit breakers the plugs are usually quite large. You work away for hours trying to find a configuration so that you can use all six outlets on the power bar, but you end up only being able to plug in three or four. Then along came the squid.

The Power Squid is not a revolutionary product, it is simply a very high quality adaptation of something that's been around for a while. But it is nice to have the flexibility of the Power Squid and when I upgrade my power surge protection I am going to go with this product. As you can see in the picture, the main difference is that the female outlets are not fixed in a bar but come out on a cord. This means you can move them around and plug in the chunkiest damn plugs you have ever seen.

They carry three surge protection products, the Surge3000 Calamari, Surge3000 and Surge1000 ranging from $50 to $75 US (on sale until March 30). They also carry a few models that act simply like an extension cord and are priced accordingly (from $16). You can order them directly from their website and they also have two resellers located in Vancouver.

Time For Some Action

I recently found myself on the ski hill with a digital camera that was not capable of doing what I wanted it to do. As my sister flew over my head I had some difficulty capturing the picture because the camera had significant shutter lag and did not have the potential to shoot a wide angle shot. I ended up getting the picture, but it made me think about the more important elements in sports photography - specifically skiing.

I did some research in order to hunt down an inexpensive camera that was capable of taking quick, wide angle shots and I came up with a few options. An SLR camera is obviously the best but I have no desire to carry that around when I'm out skiing.

In the compact point and shoot universe, there are relatively few cameras that have a wide angle lens. I found three good candidates.

1) Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 (~$300 US)
2) Canon SD800 (~$350 US)
3) Ricoh R5/R6 ($~350 US)

The Panasonic would be my first choice based on size, price and most importantly shutter lag. It is only 22mm thick and has an unlimited continuous shooting mode (hold the shutter down and take pics at 3 frames per second until you use up your memory), almost non-existent shutter lag and an image stabilized Leica lens.

The Canon is a well respected camera but is more expensive, has slightly more shutter lag and shoots only 1.7 frames per second. The Ricoh is said to have a fair bit of picture "noise" but has a 7.1x zoom in a small camera, if that's something that would interest you. Incidentally, the zoom of the Panasonic can be increased to 5.3x in 3 megapixel mode.

I think the Panasonic is a great camera to slip into your pocket and take anywhere for any kind of picture; even that elusive action shot.

Keep it Clean

I have a friend who is fond of questioning our modern bathroom behaviour. He feels that if he got a piece of shit on his face, he wouldn't simply wipe it off with a piece of paper, but would instead use some soap and water. Following that line of thought, he is of the opinion that wiping your ass with toilet paper is a little bit outdated. I can't say that I disagree with that line of thinking. Enter the Toto Washlet.

It should be noted that washlet aside, Toto makes the best toilets out there. I can honestly say that there is quite a difference between the standard toilet and a one piece Toto Ultramax. First of all, it's more comfortable, secondly it uses a lot less water than an older toilet (1.6 gallons vs 3.5) and thirdly the flush is cleaner and quieter. Basically, it's just a much better toilet. Upgrading to a Toto will run you in the neighbourhood of $400 but if you really want the ultimate experience, you have to spend around $1500.

That's the price point at which you can get a Toto toilet paired up with one of their "washlets." The washlets will do just about everything your mum used to do when she changed your diaper without the awkwardness of having your bare ass exposed to the world. Attach one of the washlets to your Toto and you'll get warm water washing, air drying, seat heating and an air deodorizing. From what I can tell, the S400 is an S300 with automatic lid and flush mechanisms. I don't personally value those features and would not pay the large premium. Toto even sells a portable version, though I think that's going way too far and may in fact be completely neurotic. For the S300 you're looking at about a grand but can you really place a price on a sparkling piece of ass?

VCRs Are So 1996

Many of you now have Tivo or other similar digital video recording (dvr) devices in your home. I do not have one attached to my TV but I do have one in my computer. There are several reasons that I think the computer option is the way to go.

The hardware required for this to work is pretty straight forward. You need a TV Capture card (I use Hauppauge's WinTV USB2) and maybe an external hard drive for the increase in storage space that you will eventually require. For software, I highly recommend Snapstream Media's Beyond TV.

Beyond TV ($69.99 USD) is really good software for what it does. You can search your local TV listings (works in Canada) for whatever show, movie or sporting event you want. You can elect to watch it live with replay ability, record it once or record all new episodes. I just programBeyond TV at the beginning of the season and all the episodes were digitally recorded on my computer. You can then convert them to DIVX so that the recordings don't take up as much space and you can even burn them to DVD. The software is a resource hog and takes a while to load and shut down, but it is the best out there from what I've sampled.

One of the coolest features, in my opinion, is the remote recording option. If I find myself at work and a colleague informs me that the Victoria's Secret runway show is airing before I get home that night, I can just go to www.snapstream.net (using my user name and password), find the program and ask it to record. A signal will then go to my computer and when the show is aired, it will be recorded and waiting for me at home.

Get Horny

This is a simple post so I won't use up a bunch of words in attempt to glorify anything. The main point is that I don't like tying up my shoe laces. I never have. I would still rock velcro if it were even remotely socially acceptable. As it stands, I just do my laces up tight and then try to slip into my shoes without ruining the heel of said shoes.

The Shoe Horn, a very simple tool that's been around a long time can make a small difference. It will however help you slip into shoes without putting a wrinkle on the heel. Those folds make you look a bit more like a bum than you would like.

Shoe horns range dramatically in price from $0 to $30. Actually, I bet you could find a fancy pretentious one for even more cash. I wouldn't spend more than $12. It's nice to have the longer ones (22" or 24") since you can use them standing up.

So Fresh and So Clean

Sometimes when you're trotting around the globe you get that not so fresh feeling. My sister frequently smells like a rotten turtle shell when we are ski touring because she doesn't have access to a cleaning cloth. Canawipe has created a compact anit-bacterial cloth that takes up so little space that you can take it anywhere.

The product is called the Wysi Wipe. It starts out life with the retail consumer, as a small hockey puck shaped piece of fabric. All you need to do is add 1 oz of water to the puck and it expands into a biodegradable towelette that you can use to wipe your face, armpit or whatever else needs wiping.

100 pieces sell for $11.95 CDN so it won't break the bank. Buy a bunch and keep some in your car, jacket, golf bag and toilet kit. You just never know when you're going to want to wipe down.

My apologies

I have been out of town for the past week and I've been unable to update this site. I apologize for my neglect but rest assured that I have not abandoned this site. I will continue to update things regularly starting Monday of next week.

Have a great weekend (i.e. drink a lot and eat some good food).

Fruit of the Vine

I am by no means a wine snob. I know that I like certain types of wine and that I really dislike other varieties, but I have never in my life noted "a hint of cherry." I enjoy the beefier red wines such as Amarone, Brunello (made from Sangiovese grape) and the Argentinian Malbec.

In Ontario, we are largely limited by the fact that the LCBO controls the sale of all liquor in the province. What you can do is use one of the smaller wine merchants in order to get something that's not on the shelf at your local LCBO. Wine merchants are not only useful in Ontario though and you'll find that there are benefits to using them wherever you reside. Find a wine broker you can trust (a feat) and she can suggest other wines that might be in keeping with your style. I know this all sounds really snobby and pretentious, but I assure you it is not. You can still buy $13/bottle wine through a merchant, the only issue is that they usually require you purchase a case minimum (12 bottles), so be sure you know what you like.

Through Wine Searcher I was able to find a merchant in Toronto who was selling the Righetti 2004 Campolieti Valpolicella, a good ripasso that I can afford at $15.85 CDN a bottle. The Wine Searcher service is really easy to use if you know what you're looking for. You just enter your country and the variety of wine and it will list the vintages available and the brokers selling them.

Apparently the weather is getting colder outside, so go grab yourself a case of nice red wine. It will keep you and your guests warm until this storm passes.