The DNC is a joke!

No, not the Democratic National Convention, although I'm sure the argument could be made. What I am referring to here is the the National Do Not Call Registry, a laughable effort to try to prevent people from being harassed by telemarketers and other nuisance calls. Set up by the Federal Trade Commission, the DNC Registry supposedly..."gives you a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls at home. Most telemarketers should not call your number once it has been on the registry for 31 days." Well I can tell you, having been registered on this list since 2003, that it does not work.

Perhaps we have ourselves to blame, being a member of a shrinking demographic of households that have a land line (required for our security system), does that make you more susceptible? The phone rings many times a day, we've basically adopted a policy of just ignoring it and screening the message to see if it's a call that we actually would want to take. Most of the time, it's not. No, most of the time, it's either a telemarketer, scammer (You're computer may be infected with a virus...said in my best Indian accent), automated message/survey, or a dead line (a tactic I am told is just used to test whether you are home at certain times of the day). The called ID isn't much help, as it will describe Unknown Caller, a random location (City/State) where the call origniates, or some other gobbly gook. Every now and then, we get an interesting description, this one is my favorite:

I did discover a feature on my phone provider's website where I could block numbers, which I have done for the more persistent callers, but there are always more. If anyone out there knows how to get rid of unwanted callers, I'm all ears, the FTC and their DNC aren't getting it done.

If only you could take the 'Live' out of Live Entertainment

I can't be the only one. You decide to attend an entertainment event, you procure tickets, get yourself to the venue and situate yourself, only to have the experience soured. Not by the act you've intended to see, but by your fellow patrons.

Recently, my family and I attended a performance of The Nutcracker. As the lights start to dim, we were fortunate enough to have a pretty sparse crowd and the usher said we could move to another  (empty) portion of the theater. We found a sweet spot where there was no one in front or behind with a nice clear view of the stage. However, when we returned after intermission, we realized quickly our oasis had been tainted. Another family had situated themselves in the row in front of us, making our clear view cluttered by silhouettes of heads (is it important to see the performer's feet in ballet?). Also, much to my surprise and chagrin, this particular theater allowed food and beverages into the venue. The whole second half became a surround sound of crinkling, crunching, and slurping.

Theater is not the only place where one can expect Fellow Human Eating And Drinking Syndrome (we'll shorten it to F-HEADS). Any movie going experience is rife with F-HEADS. Honestly, the person who decided that the introduction of a messy and noisy food such as popcorn to a situation where you are in the dark with a bunch of strangers trying to hear a movie should be shot. Add to that the kicking of your seat, talking all around you, and ringing cell phones and you wonder why anyone goes to the movies at all.

Live sporting events are just as bad, adding in the wild card of weather and the fact that your team may lose, which makes for a long ride home.

Concerts these days you can barely see the stage through the oceans of morons holding up their phones, struggling to get a lousy video they will never watch again, instead of enjoying the moment.

And that is really what it comes down to, to me. People seem to be content to experience their lives rather than living them. If it doesn't happen on a smartphone and can't be posted, it never happened (don't worry, the irony of posting this comment on a blog is not lost on me), if at least two things can't be done at once, it's a waste of time and a couple of hours simply can't go by without some sort of food/beverage being administered.

I know I come off here as a curmudgeon. The fact is, I like seeing movies on the big screen, watching a good game, and seeing live music. If only we could all have private screenings, the NFL in the front yard and Billy Joel live in the Living Room. I guess that's why we a put up with these annoyances, F-HEADS and all.

There is just something about this time of year...

...that makes me want to bake. Perhaps it is instinct that tells us that we are supposed to fatten up for the coming cold of winter, thickening our layer of blubber to stand up to the impending chill. Or it could be the desire to create culinarily (Yes, I just coined that, don't try to use it in Scrabble). Or maybe, it's just the siren call of sweets that I find so irresistible. Whatever the reason, this is the season.

One of the other fun aspects of baking at this time of year, is sharing freshly made treats with others. Many of my close friends and family have been the beneficiary of my seasonally bountiful kitchen, it's just fun to spread a little caloric joy. Since it's not always possible to share my sweet treats with everyone, I figured I would share some of my favorite recipes here:

Glazed Pecan Holiday Nuts:

These are a perennial favorite and so easy to make. The sugar,cinnamon and vanilla form a syrup on the outside of the nuts that when cooked just right makes a gritty sweet coating, complimenting the pecans (I've tried other nuts and pecans are the best IMO). Everyone I give these to says they are the delicious. Another tip, there's always some chunks of the sugary goodness that doesn't stick to the nuts. I save that and use it as a topping for muffins, or blueberry coffee cake (see below).
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/s878y7mc/glazed-pecan-holiday-nuts.html

Hershey Kiss Triple Chocolate Blossoms:

This recipe, I improvise a bit to delicious result. 1) I don't use the chocolate chips. 2) I don't use milk chocolate Hershey Kisses, instead, I use the Mint Truffle Kisses, only available around the holidays.

They are like a meltway concealed inside a Hershey Kiss. If you plunk them onto the cookie shortly after taking them out of the oven, they kiss melts, moistening the otherwise dry cookie. The mint center is a bonus.
https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/en_US/recipes/4715/kisses-triple-chocolate-blossoms.html

Layers of Love Brownies:

A favorite from my treasured Nestle cookbook. The caramel and white chips in the middle layer add a whole level of texture. A note, these get better the longer they sit. I think the caramel seeps into the otherwise dry brownie over time.
https://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/32212/layers-of-love-chocolate-brownies/

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake:

Takes a while to cook, so plan ahead if you are making it for breakfast. See my note above about augmenting the topping with nut crumbs. When I don't have the nut crumbs, I usually double the topping amount to ensure I get good coverage.
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/14da0hz/cream-cheese-and-blueberry-coffee-cake.html

Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce:
I have made this many times, it is big favorite in our household. However, in all the times I've made it, I've never used raisins (blech) and never made the bourbon sauce. I find letting it go longer in the oven is better, a sprinkle of a coarse sugar on top is nice. and allow to cool a bit before serving. (I couldn't find the recipe online, so I snapped a photo, hopefully it is readable).


So these are my favorites, shared with you all. Feel free to share yours in the comments section. Enjoy.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...For lovers of mint!

Thanksgiving has not yet passed, but it is undeniable that the holiday season is upon. The stores have ambushed us with holiday themed goods, decorations, and music as we stroll the aisles, there's no missing it. While I generally find the early arrival of the holidays a bit annoying, there's no denying there's one thing I truly relish...The arrival of holiday themed goodies featuring mint flavor.

I am among those who enjoy the flavor of mint. My favorite candy are spice flavored jelly beans with peppermint, spearmint, clove, anise, and cinnamon flavors.

Luckily, I have secured a reliable source where I can obtain these year round in bulk, allowing me to stock my desktop dispenser. We, the mint lovers of the world, must be a minority because most anything mint flavored generally enjoys a very short life cycle, only to disappear from existence.

But sometimes, a little holiday magic gets to working and these bundles of joy return. Today, perusing the candy aisle of my local Walmart, I came across a sight I had not beheld in a number of years, mint flavored Kit Kats. These appeared one holiday season of yore, only to vanish for years to come. I am pleased to say they are back this year, and I stocked up!

A more reliable treasure is Mint flavored M&Ms. These were around intermittently a while back, but seemed to have enjoyed a renaissance and are present on the candy aisle shelves all the time now. The holiday twist is they get a peppermint variety (as well as the holiday color treatment),

A recent find are the candy cane Joe Joes for Trader Joes. Basically an oreo with the filling mint flavored and including little bits of peppermint stick. Get them while you can, they are only around during the holidays, and once they are gone, they're gone.

My white whale of mint flavored yummies, Walmart carried some delicious chocolate cookies a few years back, made by Andes Candies. One year only, never saw them again. I can only hope those come back around.

Before you know it, New Years will be in our rear view mirror, and all the special goodies gone, hopefully to reappear next year. Sad as it is to see them go, I can start to pine away for the appearance of the Easter Goodies a few scant months later. Yes, I have a problem.

Small is the new Medium?

As previously stated, I am an average size guy. As such, I have always shopped for clothes in size Medium, which would stand to reason. However, lately, there seems to be a trend of upsizing.

I recently purchased a pair of comfy flannel pants, similar to those I've bought in the past. Without giving it any thought (or trying them on, banish the thought), I bought Medium size. When I got them home and put them on for the first time, they were falling off me, had to downsize to get a fit. I've witnessed the same phenomenon buying a sweater, a fleece jacket and underwear, of all things.

What could possibly explain this effect? Is it the clothing industry adapting to a 'super-sized' America? Is it our refusal to adopt the metric system and it's a conversion issue? Maybe I'm just shrinking as I get older? (I assure you I am not, especially in the waist line)

Whatever the reason, it's become clear that I will have to shed that male characteristic lack of desire to try on clothes and see if I am truly a Medium, or a new Small.

No Whitening Thank You...

We all want to look good, right? Well somehow, we have been convinced that the best way to look good is with a beautiful smile. Correction: a bright WHITE beautiful smile. We must use whitening gums, strip, mints and of course toothpastes to get that stellar white smile that we all desire. This is all ironic on a number of levels.

First, why aren't our teeth white in the first place? Could it be all the soda, coffee, tea, candy and snacks that are sold and marketed to us ad nauseam? Judging by the bottom lines of the companies that purvey these products, I'd guess that has something to do with it. There products all stain the enamel on the exterior of our teeth, leaving the objectionable shades behind.

The second irony is that the products that whiten our teeth are actually weakening them. The way most work is to wear the outer layer (the stained layer from above) of the enamel off to expose the clean layer underneath. Akin to polishing a dull stone to expose the lovely colorations concealed below. However, unlike the stone, our teeth are smaller and thinner and have a finite layer of enamel, once it's wore off, it's gone making our teeth even more susceptible.

The final issue is what made me want to rant on this topic in the first place, and that's the presence of these whitening products in toothpaste. Toothpaste is by its very nature something we use to protect our teeth, so the incorporation of something designed to essentially wear down our teeth is ludicrous. As I shopped in the supermarket today for a new tube of toothpaste, I searched and searched for a paste that not only did not include whitening, but did include products to rebuild enamel. The real joke is that some of these toothpastes claim to do both. That's like simultaneously applying paint and thinner at the same time and I don't see how that could work.

In the end, I found my unicorn, Sensodyne ProNamel Daily Protection (NO Whitening!) which I will happily use to protect my teeth and rebuild my enamel. I guess I'll just have to live with not being one of the beautiful people.

Setting up My New Phone: When Joy turns to Agony

"It's so easy". That's what I always hear from my wife about her iphone specifically and Apple products generally. She has drunk the elixir and is all in.

But that's not for me. For as long as I have had a smartphone, I've had an Android handset with all of its various quirks (compatibility issues, operating system bugs...), and advantages (I love widgets!). Every now and then I even get a "that's really cool" from my wife when I show her a certain feature.

So here I am with my latest foray into android, my new Nexus 6 (see prior post). Out of the box it came with the rawest form of Android available, with no corporate skin or carrier bloatware for a fast streamlined user experience, sort of. With the set up process came a multitude of issues that have severely tainted my initial impressions:

1. Apps: I had to go the Google Play store and manually locate and download all of the apps that I had on my former device (individually), then set them up/log in for each one. Such a tedious process!

2. Music: Instead of transferring my music from the old device, I decided to just re-sync from my computer. A relatively painless process, however, Google Play Music (the default music player on the device) no longer supports WMA format and wouldn't you know, half my music library is in that format. So began the process of locating a new music app that would support my music, a lengthy, but successful process. BUT...This new player was not supported by my bluetooth app so when I got in the car, it started Google Play. Left with no choice, I had to convert all of my WMA to MP3, an hours long foray, but it was successful and I am back to using Google Play.

3. Contacts: Between Google and Verizon, my contacts should have transferred seamlessly. Google lived up to that billing, but Verizon wasn't playing ball, so I had to manually sync up my contacts. A day later, those same contacts were gone and there was no way to restore them, even though they showed up on my cloud. After another lengthy chat with Verizon, they finally decided to load (again). So far, they're still there.

4. Sticking Accelerometer: Twice the accelerometer stuck and the phone would not recognize being turned sideways. A restart corrected the issue, but twice in two days seemed troublesome.

5. Weather Widget: As I said above, I love widgets. They give you quick access to info right from the home screen. I decided with a new phone, I was due a new home screen widget. Easier said than done, there are literally hundreds of apps with thousands of options, none perfect. This is probably more a result of my pickiness than the phone/app store, but challenging nonetheless. Finally settled on a basic clock widget with a nice 5 day forecast band underneath.

6. Voice Mail: Because the phone I got is 'unlocked', it is not carrier specific. While my carrier, Verizon, was willing to let me activate it on their network, it did not come with any of the carrier software (My Verizon, Voice Mail) so I was unable to get visual voicemail, as I was on my previous phone. After tons of looking on the internet (and attempting to side load the voice mail app) and talking to Verizon it appeared I was out of luck and I was going to have to call in to get my voice mail and get weird texts every time one came in. So I skipped to step 4...

7. Software updates: The handset shipped with Android 5.0 (Lollipop), a year old build and I was very aware that there were at least a few updates since. However, the phone would not update. I called Google and they said it could take up to a month for the updates to push. Convinced that if I updated the phone, it might address some of the issues above, I decided to manually load these updates. While the process was not hard (thanks to all the geeks on the web that detail this process and make all of the info available), it did take a fair amount of time as I could not simply skip to the latest version, had to do all the incremental updates, but in the end, I was updated to Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). While the changes to the operating system didn't mean much to me, it magically fixed a number of the above issues; no problems with the accelerometer since, and I was able to side load Visual Voicemail).

With all of the above completed, the phone is up and running like a champ. So I jump on and make my first phone call and my client says, "you sound funny". Ugh....A change in my phone's location seems to have remedied that (the speaker was picking up an echo from the wall behind it), so now I am in what I consider the actual trial of this device (3 days later). I have a narrow window of time to decide if I should stick it out, or just send it back (and then start over again with another device!). With all this work, I almost feel like I have to keep it, but we shall see...Let's just hope that accelerometer holds up!