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CHEESE COUNT HUZZAH!!!!!!’

Months ago, I marveled at the collection of cheeses we just happened to have in our meat and cheese drawer in the fridge. I believe I one time counted 10 different cheeses residing in the chilled compartment. Kind of boggled my mind at the time. So I figured I’d take another look and see where we are now. Really, with the blog still in play, my last chance to make an *official* cheese report.

As a caveat, some cheeses we have in two forms, like shredded sharp cheddar, and sharp cheddar slices. I’m just counting sharp cheddar.

We begin.

1.Sharp cheddar

2.Blue

3.mozzarella

4.chihuahua

5.gorgonzola

6.goat

7.feta

8.asiago

9.fontina

10.provolone

11.brie

12.parmesan

If everyone will please sit down, I’ll make my closing comments.

Yes, this IS a new record breaking total! An even dozen!

Yes, this DOES turn 2020 around into a huge win!

Yes, I’m now hungry for cheese.

Yes, had I counted up the contents a couple days ago as I originally intended, I might even have found more.

We can all rest easy knowing we’re all set for cheese.

I’m actually surprised we were out of honey goat cheese, as we often have that.

I feel that if we really apply ourselves, we’ll buy more cheese.

Actually, I mostly eat the cheddar, maybe a little blue here and there.

Everything else goes into recipes, I believe.

CHEESE, WONDERFUL CHEESE!

It’s good and good *for* you!

Cheese.

Why is Star Trek VS Star Wars even a Thing?

Full disclosure right out of the box, that of the two, my allegiance is to Star Trek, but fear not. I’ll be fair and balanced here.

Once in a while, I’ll run into a rather devoted Star Trek fan, who is in discussion with a devoted Star Wars fan. Almost inevitably, the little digs start getting traded. I’d imagine some discussions get down right irate, but in nerd culture, that always happens. And really, you know *why* these Trek V Wars discussions ever even happen?

Because the names both have “Star” in the titles.

That’s it. The *only* reason there’s any competition whatsoever. It’s actually kind of stupid. The two franchises have very little in common, aside from there being outer space elements. Apples and oranges.

Star Trek is science fiction. Star Wars is fantasy.

And no, Star Wars isn’t science fiction because they don’t come anyway near employing actual science, or when they’ve tried, they got it wrong, or it just seemed a bit out of place, so actual science is ignored in favor of magic and fantasy. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You got your good guys, the Jedi’s, vs the bad guys, the Empire and the Sith, or variations there of. You have The Force, that is everywhere, and can be manipulated by some for good or evil. Star Wars just has more in common with sword and sorcery stuff, D&D, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, than any sci-fi franchise. “A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away” is just a more elegant way of saying “once upon a time…”.

Meanwhile, Star Trek, in its many tv shows and movies shows us humanity’s possible future in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries. It revolves around The United Federation of Planets and it’s exploratory/military branch, Starfleet. The service utilizes the old naval ranking system and we see various crews in starships and space stations on many an adventure. But these fictional takes are grounded in humanity and very much in real science.

As for quality, well, neither franchise is perfect, I’ll leave it at that, but both are still around and thriving.

But really, since both are so ridiculously different, the next time there’s a “which is better?” argument creeping in, just remind the combatants that they’re two different genres all together.

Then remind them that Doctor Who is superior to both.

The Shorts Thing

I don’t know if anyone has ever noticed this before but probably more often than not, I wear shorts.

No, seriously.

This’ll blow your mind—I even wear them in the winter.

Yes, I wear then for comfort. Much more flexibility of movement. Helps keep me cool. There happen to be extra pockets on the kind I wear, too, which is very convenient.

The “helps keep me cool” thing is huge too, as I am a human blast furnace.

Mind you, that partially ties in with my weight. It goes up, so does my internal temp. In fact, my standard temp is 97.6, one degree cooler than the accepted norm, mostly because I’m always throwing off heat.

Post COVID, I’m actually a bit chillier, as I lost some weight. I’d like to keep the majority of it off. We’ll see.

The shorts in winter is what people can’t seem to comprehend, as it’s OUTSIDE THE REALM OF THE NORMALLY ACCEPTED WAY.

“Oh my god, aren’t you freezing?!??!” “You’re not wearing paaaants!” “I’m calling animal control!!!!!”

But there really is a method to the “madness.”

Come winter time, I used to drive to the store to get a coffee. No matter the temp, be it below zero or whatever, I’d wear shorts. Because I’m only outside for 20 seconds, car to store and back.

When I used to go downtown every day to work, I’d have to walk a half mile to the train. If it was mild and above freezing, I’d go shorts, as the walk would also generate heat. If I was wearing long pants, I’d be sweating.

However, if it were 40, with freezing rain of nasty flurries, I’d go long pants. I might have my shorts with me to change into at work. See? I’m not too crazy.

Because that’s another factor. At work, you never know who’s going to be over-compensating with turning up the heat. There were a couple days when I ended up in long pants at work, just miserable in the heat. It was not fun.

Speaking of going to work, I forget what year it was, but I realized that that particular winter where I wore shorts every single day going to work, was the single healthiest winter I’d ever had. Something about the weird way my body processes things, temp, whatever. But yeah, there you have it.

I’m by no means alone. Lots of guys have adopted the shorts year ‘round practice.

Me going from commuter to work at home over the years has made it that much easier. Lockdown and post COVID, even more so.

So yes, I do have my daily “uniform”, as my friend Mike calls it, shorts and a polo shirt every day. It’s what I like.

Keeping an assortment of the exact same things in your closet keeps your choices simple and to the point. And Einstein did it to. Einstein.

JUST SAYIN’.

Santa– How does he do it?

He manages to deliver hundreds of millions of presents to everyone’s homes all across the world in one evening. Well, in 24 hours really, if you work your way across the world, racing the sun and the international dateline. Still, that’s a lot of ground to cover in that time period.

Is he a good guy or a bad guy? After all, Santa is an anagram of Satan. Seems a bit of a negative stretch as well as an unfortunate anagram coincidence.

Happily, most consider the more positive side, with him being a beneficial entity, albeit infinitely powerful. This would tend to make more sense, as let’s face it, Santa has been doing wonderful things in this fashion for centuries, so I *think* we’re safe in assuming he’s good guy.

But the point of this discussion is how does he do it? How does he make the deliveries all over the globe in one night?

Time portals? Magic?

Possibly, abilities and technologies so far advanced from what we know that we would perceive them as magic with our little monkey brains.

My guess, and I’ve given this some thought, is that there possibly are a couple things at play.

First, is that Santa, whether by birth or by technological advancement, is an entity who is capable of super speed, allowing him to be 1,000 times more productive than a regular person.

Second, he somehow has the ability to also locally slow down time to a crawl. Time slowing down by a thousand fold combined with him speeding up a thousand fold, makes the job getting accomplished in the time allowed seem more reasonable.

Third, I’m thinking some type of transporter tech rings true, along with varied holograms, projecting his image into certain houses just for fun. Presents appear under the tree, while there’s a hint of a Santa image nearby, perhaps by the tree or the fireplace. If he can program the system for whole neighborhoods simultaneously, as he hovers in orbit aboard the galactic sleigh, it would certainly streamline the process.

Of course, there this another option. An amazing option.

That Santa, as an entity, doesn’t even have to inhabit a physical body. Perhaps he learned many centuries ago, that to be that much more effective, he’d transform himself into the true spirit of Christmas. A spirit that would spread across the world and come to rest in each of us. To lighten our hearts and spread cheer.

Oh, there’s still the master list out there of what everyone wants. But with Santa residing deep within each of us, what better way to communicate directly to families on what to get each other?

Perhaps that Santa spirit is what powers the whole experience! Seems almost crazy simple. But nice.

So there you go. A few options. Of course I can’t know 100% if I’m right or not.

But Santa knows.

He always knows.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

The Evolution of My Coffee

I’m a big iced coffee guy. Year ‘round.

Yes these ARE the trivial nooks and crannies of my life—a reminder, that’s what this blog is. You string all 366 together, you’ve pretty much got me. My life, such as it is.

And I drink iced coffee.

I can’t do hot coffee, as I as a rule don’t do hot liquids.

Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, as I do like certain soups etc. but I really can’t do hot coffee. Drinking *any* coffee started about 25 years ago.

Back in the day, I liked my Frappachino’s at Starbucks. This was before the first time I went on Jenny Craig. It was after that, and altering my coffee style that at some point, I tasted a Frappachino again and realized just how sweet it was.

YIKES! But you can see how why the high school kids would line up for them.

At the height of my dietary awareness, I think I put the poor Starbucks girls through their paces. I’m trying to remember what exactly I asked for—I think it was a venti, iced, no water, 4 splendor’s, top with soy milk. Actually, considering the crazy things some folks ask for, maybe that wasn’t too nuts.

Over time though, I bugged them less and just cobbled together something on my own. Less chance of something going wrong. I’d go to the side and add some packets of spend and some cream. That’s still what I do today at any coffee shop.

And no, it’ll be quite some while before I go to the coffee shop, any coffee shop again.

But for the longest time, we’ve had a routine at home—

Before my bout with COVID, the drill used to go like this:

Linda would make her coffee. There’d be a fair amount left later in the morning. I would then fill up my big Starbuck’s plastic cup with the straw—one of those permanent, hard plastic ones—, put it in the fridge and the next morning, I’d have a cold coffee waiting for me. I’d add ice, cream, and a couple/three Truvia.

Now, you may say “What ho, Rick, why not just pour hot coffee over ice?”

Well, sure, I could, but then I’d have a glass of watered down, lame coffee. No.

This method keeps the coffee’s intensity intact, no watering down.

The alternative at home, when Linda happens to not make her coffee in the morning for whatever reason, are the Starbucks jugs they sell at the store. I can always pour some of that into a glass, bingo, bango, boom.

Post COVID, I’m keeping it even simpler, with a fairly small glass of Starbucks, or Dunkin’ Donuts brand with a bit of cream and Trivia. It gives me a tiny bit of a pick me up, as you’d imagine.

This wasn’t interesting, but it is me…..

COFFEE!

Door Dash Mish Mash Clash

In this era of contactless food delivery, since indoor dining out is verboten, we here at Casa Lundeen tend to do Door Dash, with Matthew doing the ordering honors.

There was talk of Grub Hub at first but evidently both Matthew and Theresa had bad experiences with late delivery and cold food.

So Door Dash has been the go-to. But the system is definitely not without its issues.

In the last month or so, we’d ordered a number of times from Wendy’s, and the orders have consistently been wrong. We ordered chicken nuggets from a Buffalo Wild wings, and it took two and a half hours to get to us. We ordered dinner from McDonalds at 5pm, and they said they were closed and the earliest the order would arrive would be 11am the next morning. (?)

Sometimes, the food would not come from the location you know of one mile away, but a different one 12 miles away. Yes, it IS perplexing.

The whole Door Dash thing really is a mixed bag.

Other places, you can pick up curbside, like Combs gyros or Salernos pizza and those are solid options but you have to go pick them up.

I really am a delivery guy though.

The best of all possible worlds is just ordering a pizza from Rosati’s. Boom.

And Rosati’s is really on the ball as far as coverage area too. They seem to deliver everywhere.

I think over all, the Door Dash and Grub Hub systems are at the mercy of the intelligence and responsibility of the individual driver.

You really have no idea if said driver has any clue what they’re doing. Although if the food service place in question screws up, well, that doesn’t seem like a good idea in the current climate.

Like most things these days, it’s a bit of a dice roll.

Doctor Who Showrunner- Who’ll step up?

Current Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall’s due to leave after 2022, having delivered a whole 29 episodes across five years. I honestly can’t imagine the BBC extending his run, as the popularity of the show hasn’t been this low since the mid 1980’s.

So who’s up for the task?

I have no idea. It’s possible the BBC doesn’t either.

This was a surprise to me when I heard it, but evidently, being in charge of Doctor Who these days is mostly a hot potato that virtually no one wants to try and handle.

This saddens me.

When Russel T Davies was stepping down, we were ecstatic because Steve Moffat accepted the job. He’s the one we wanted in there and almost feared it would be too good to be true, but he did take the job, and did a great job.

Oh sure, he made mistakes just like RTD, but over all, an excellent showrunner.

But when the Moff stepped down, there was no heir apparent.

I wondered if perhaps Mark Gatiss might step up. He’s written a fair amount of DW, and co produced Sherlock and more recently Dracula with Moffat. At the time, looking at a pile of possibilities, none really stood out, but Gatiss, I would have thought, was in the mix. But no.

My other thought was Jamie Mathieson, who wrote the brilliant Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline for Moffat and Capaldi in Series 8. But no. And to be fair, as much as I’ve loved what Mathieson’s written, I must remind myself that it wasn’t all him.

During the RTD and Moffat years, it didn’t matter who got the writing credit, as most every episode was heavily rewritten by Russell or Steven. Sometimes completely. So the DNA in all those scripts are mostly the showrunners. Which is fine, as that’s their job.

So, when Moffat stepped down and it was announced that Chibnall was coming on board, I wasn’t excited but at least I was hopeful, as Chibnall wrote “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”, one of my favorite Matt Smith eps, and a few other decent ones as well. Or so I thought. Yeah, turns out it was Moffat. I know this because Chibnall has shown repeatedly he can’t write his way out of a paper bag. There’s absolutely no possibility that he is responsible for the delightful DOAS, after seeing his many recent samples.

ANYWAY…..back to the present and who might take over.

Now, I look to Gatiss with even more urgency, mostly because right now, as far as being a life long Doctor Who fan and contributor to the show, he seems to be the only viable candidate.

At the very least, I’d hope that Gatiss or some diehard DW fan would CARE enough about their beloved show to step up to get it back on track. Yet the “hot potato” effect may even be worse now.

Although, I don’t know…. any good or familiar name might be eagerly welcomed with open arms to save the show. One can only hope.

Whoever does step up, they’ll be doing so just in time for the show’s 60 anniversary in 2023. God knows we can use a party. I just don’t want Chibnall’s stank anywhere near it.

Some think that due to what’s been perpetrated during the Chibnall era, the rock bottom ratings, etc., that the Beeb might just cancel or rest the show.

I don’t think so. The Beeb needs to keep adding content, apparently regardless of quality to keep making a bigger DW streaming entity for sales purposes. And due to various international television deals, Doctor Who is already committed to a 14th series, so at least one more after the upcoming, COVID reduced, 8 episode, Series 13.

So the show will go on. In what form, how many episodes, with who at the helm? No idea. The future of the show is definitely a non-fixed point in time.

Anything can happen. We can only hope for some good news.

Waiting for the blu-rays

Looks like I’ll be having plenty of movies potentially spoiled for me over the next year.

See, I have no idea the next time I’ll ever go into a movie theater. Usually it’s not an issue until a big MCU film comes out–superhero movies are the only ones I tend to go see, mostly because of the spoiler factor. The longer I wait to go see something, the more likely I’ll hear something I shouldn’t.

But the whole COVID mess and accompanying idiots who don’t wear masks, won’t take the vaccine…well, I’ll skip the theater and take my chances with spoilers.

This year, only Wonder Woman 1984 is left, coming out on Christmas Day. and yeah, I’m good with waiting however many more months after for the disc.

Next year, off the top of my head, we’ve got Black Widow, Suicide Squad, Shang Chi, The Eternals and Spider-man 3.

BW is a flashback, and will still be in the midst of the pandemic uncertainty. I’ll risk the wait for the disk and the spoilers.

Suicide Squad, unlike the first piece of crap, should be a ton of fun thanks to James Gun at the helm. I’ll risk spoilers and wait.

Shang Chi, I know virtually nothing about the property, so I’ll wait.

The Eternals, same thing, even less interest. Happy to wait.

Spider-man 3 will be interesting. A ton going on in that one, sounds bonkers, and it’s later in the year. Hmmm. There’s a slight possibility. Vaccine, different circumstances? We’ll see.

2022, very Hyped for Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. We’ll see what the pandemic landscape is like. Same for Thor: Love and Thunder.

Black Panther 2 and Captain Marvel 2, no interest.

So I will be tested a couple times.

Sigh, this shouldn’t be a thing.

Bikes and braking

This is *sort* of a companion piece to my entry on driving stick, utilizing the clutch, etc. This one was sparked by an online discussion about old bikes, and the generation shift from the old backward-foot pedal braking system, compared with the change to hand brakes.

Once again, I’m somewhat the odd man out in that I still prefer the old foot brakes. Mind you, I also prefer the old style bikes, period. The last bike I ever had was old school until it rusted away.

Maybe the big ten speed craze back in the day was what prompted the brake reconfiguration. Never cared for ten speeds. Everything about them seemed unnecessarily overcomplicated. Having ten speeds for one. Get on your bike, pedal, go faster. The harder you pedal, the faster you go. I really didn’t see the need for elaborate gear changes, etc. I guess people just ate up the high tech bike appeal.

It just occurs to me this instant–there was no *style* with ten speeds. They were all just thin. Thin tires, thin body, thin seat. Oh, maybe the handle bars might differentiate here and there but they looked generic to me. Kind of like cars in general these days compared to 60 years ago. The biggest design attribute in cars now is to minimize wind resistance, aid fuel economy. So mostly, you’re looking at sleek metal projectiles that are fairly similar to each other.

Although to be fair, in the last decade or so, it *seems* as though auto makers have attempted to distinguish their models more, with some added design flair.

But back to bikes.

The hand brakes simply make no sense to me. Hell, I was 17 when hand brakes (mixed with my stupidity) almost killed me in Hawaii, while on a moped, simply because I’d never encountered them before. (Of course this was covered in my Hawaii series this past spring)

But aside from that, the back pedal braking system seems more solid. If you have to brake hard, I’ll always feel more confident employing the strength of my legs and feet stopping the bike. Far more so than with hand grips.

One of the guys I was talking to today related a time he hit the hand brakes and got flung over the handlebars. To me, it feels like foot braking from that lower point of gravity would be preferable.

I *guess* it’s possible that the powers that be initiated the whole hand brake thing simply because those wispy little ten speed tires seem to need extra front and back brakes to try and properly grip the things at the enhanced speeds, in an equal, simultaneous pressure. Then they just stopped bothering with foot braking all together, thinking everybody loves hand brakes.

And maybe because motorcycles, scooters, etc. all have hand brakes, they just fell in line. Eh, the point is moot for me, as I’m probably not going to be investing in a new bike anytime soon, if ever, now.

But if I ever do, it’ll be vintage, with the foot brakes. Just sayin’.

Clutch, Brake, Accelerator

Back in the day, all cars had clutches for shifting gears. When shifting from gear to gear, your feet–both of them– were very busy working the pedals. The left foot was on the clutch for every shift. The right, working the brake and accelerator back and forth. It was how things were done.

Eventually, most cars became automatic, eliminating the need to shift manually, so no more stick or clutch pedal. But tons of drivers, after making the change from manual to automatic, out of habit, just kept using their right foot on both remaining pedals, while the left foot did nothing. And the prevailing thought was “This Is The Way” for all time. This mantra is especially embraced by those today who ever drove a stick in the past, including some friends of mine, and my wife.

I think I’ve got a lot of friends who know how to drive stick. I am not one of them.

No, when I was 16 back in driver’s ed, the cars I learned to drive in were automatic. And in doing so, I knew nothing about the Ways of The Clutch.

So, when in the car, I had the brake on the left, the accelerator on the right. Two pedals, two feet. Seemed to balance out just fine. Remember, I was not haunted by knowledge of The Old Ways. Even though my instructor told me that the accepted method was using just the right foot, I found it awkward to switch back and forth.

I found that having the left foot poised to step on the brake gave me much better reaction time than having to take the right foot off one and move it to the other.

The Clutch Folk can’t wrap their minds around it, thinking it’s crazy, but I think the reverse. They just can’t get out of the clutch mode. I suppose it’s for the best for them, in case they ever find themselves in a situation where they end up driving a stick again.

Now, I’ve tried to drive stick in the past. In my 20’s, one friend took me out to try to teach me. I could not get the hang of it. I was working on the K-mart loading dock at the time and I even attempted driving the forklift. Oh, that was a mess. I just absolutely could not get that timing down. Probably because I already had a few years with my own pedal system– I guess I was already set in my ways. I could not make the unfamiliar adjustment.

Popular, or textbook mandatory thinking is that it’s less efficient to use both feet in an automatic as I do. Well, I disagree. For a person who’s never known the complications of stick, two feet, two pedals, seems the most logical and efficient. Especially more so than having to have the right foot do all the work. If it was a matter of having to brake fast in a situation, I stand by my poised left foot to hit that brake, rather than wait for the right to come off the accelerator, shift over to the brake and depress it.

It’s worked for me for 40 years.

Probably because I’ve never been in the Shadow of The Stick.

So to recap, I’ve never been comfortable with the clutch,

But I’m very good in the clutch.

Because the Thing IS.