Drinking From the Manischewitz Kool-Aid

Just saw an interesting episode of House tonight. 

A Chasidic woman, who was a recent Ba'alas Teshuva, is admitted to the hospital where House works after collapsing at her wedding. (She fell out of her chair during the dance at the wedding.) The episode had the typical plot we've come to expect from the show (mystery illness, has a few theories that don't pan out, patient starts collapsing at key moments, they think she's going to die, then House figures it out in the end, and all is OK). 

It could be the first time on a network TV show where the first parts of Eishes Chayil were actually sung in the "traditional" tune.

There and Back Again

Well, I am now two days back from a trip down to New Jersey to visit my wife's family and friends.

And it was quite interesting, considering I had to drive the entire way with 5 kids in the back.

We started driving down last December 23rd. I had to pick up the rental car from a downtown location (don't ask), drive it all the way home (that took about 30 minutes) and pack everything up. 

Since our two oldest kids sit in "booster car seats" which require them to be buckled up every time someone sits in it, it presented a quite a challenge since the belt buckle was jammed in between the two seats. Every time (and this was quite often since we stopped many times) I had to go from the back of the minivan, reach over, stick my hand down in between the seats, maneuver my other hand with the belt, and make sure that it clicked into place.

During our trip down, it rained almost the entire time, alternating between light rain, heavy rain, and torrential downpour (that would be in northern Pennsylvania). It gets to be quite unnerving seeing the windshield wipers move back and forth before your eyes for 10 hours straight.

I do have to say that the Pennsylvania Welcome Center for tourists on Route 15 in Tioga was one of the nicest rest stops I have ever seen. Government of Ontario, take note next time you feel like spending taxpayers money.

Anyways, on our way down it was getting late, my daughter was upset, and I got on the I-80 without noticing that I went West instead of East. At the next rest stop, I decided to look at its map and noticed that its "You are here" pin was not where I expected it to be. I had gone 22 miles off course! I am generally good with maps and directions so it hurt my pride a bit to make that mistake. Fortunately, there was an exit right after so I was able to do a quick turn around.

For more details, see my wife's post.

To be continued...

iPhone in Canada?

Last Friday, on the bus, I saw my first iPhone in person, which was quite interesting since officially speaking, we do not have the iPhone yet in Canada. It is rumoured to be introduced around Jan. - Feb. 2008 on the Rogers network.

The person made an actual phone local call. My guess is that he had an unlocked iPhone (purchased from eBay), possibly using AppSnapp. 

One of the drawbacks I can see off the bat is that since the screen is a nice high resolution touch screen, I could clearly see the phone number and name of the person he was calling. I could see that as a potential security risk.

Kosher Subway in Toronto with Wal-Mart?

Construction of a massive Wal-Mart (are there any Wal-Marts which are not massive?) is nearing completion in Thornhill, north of Toronto. This new Wal-Mart is slightly more stylish than others (i.e. instead of the plain "boxy" look, they have "dressed it up" a bit) and is said to include a kosher grocery section.

 

I was talking to my friend this past Shabbos and he said that the plaza that is in development around it is rumoured to include a kosher Subway. Although there are now kosher Subways in other cities, as of yet, I'm not sure if this is true or not.

The Top n Excuses Given By Software Developers

The following is a list of top excuses given by software developers, in no particular order. If I think of more, I will add it to the list. #1 - "It works on my machine." #2 - "I can't repoduce the problem." #3- "You don't have the latest [version/service pack/build]." #4- "That was not in the specs." (or worse, "There are no specs!") #5- "The bug exists in 3rd party code." (and worse, "...and its closed source.")

My Wife Has Gone Batty

She has had a close encounter with a brown blur. Everyone's OK. See her post for details.

Ark Builders

Considering that Parshas Noach (Torah portion of Noah) was my bar mitzvah parsha, I found the following three cases of modern ark building quite amusing. It seems that a Dutch man built a life size replica of Noah's ark, animals included (or at least life size models). In other news, Greenpeace activists built a replica of the ark on Mount Arrarat to protest global warming. Noah was an enviromental activist? Who knew? And a new upcoming movie called Evan Almighty starring Steve Carell (a followup to Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty), has Morgan Freeman telling him to become a mordern day Noah and build an ark.

Flower Power

The London Telegraph reports that the latest "cause" for environmentalists in Britain is flowers, many brought in for Valentine's day. Apparently, many of the flowers are imported from far away (e.g. Africa) by plane. Planes, like cars, give off emissions. Thus, buying flowers, or at least ones not locally grown, allegedly contributes to global warming. That is absolutely ridiculous. Do they not realize that in this context, flowers are consumer goods just like anything else? Do they not realize that all sorts of goods are imported every single day, many of them by plane? If they take that logic to its extreme then no consumer goods at all should be imported since it is concievable that everything can be produced locally. Imagine what that would do to the economy, not just for Britain, but for all countries exporting to Britain.

No Statistics

After a few winter months of warmer than normal temperatures and hardly any snow, the last few weeks (especially the last one) have erased all memories of that time. I now realize that we have three kinds of winter temperatures here in Toronto. Cold, damn cold, and... Winnipeg.

The Cat Has Pearly Teeth

This morning, my daughter was telling me about how she doesn't like dogs but she does like cats. I asked her, "Why don't you like dogs?" She told me its because they have teeth. So I told her, "But cats have teeth too. How else would they eat food?" So, she told me that cats can have a drink instead!