The Moose Factory - Virtual Bar and Grill - Version 3

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

There have been brief spurts where we watched TV, but Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) is the only one I've watched all the way through. Magnum PI (the old one) was taken off of Prime before we could finish it last year, but like older Star Trek it's all episodic, so the watch order is not so important. I remember watching Seifeld in the 90s, and cartoons when I was younger, but the most modern show we've watched has been off the air for a long, long time. I'm not like an anti-TV person, we watch old Trek every night, but we watch movies a lot more often, and we spent a lot of time in Japan watching Japanese TV shows. We've never seen GoT or Big Bang Theory. Many people have told me to watch Big Bang Theory since I am a nerd, but since I live that life I have no desire to watch others doing it hahahahahah.

 

How does pasta sound tonight? We'll serve up an alfredo and pour it on fettucini. Garlic bread will be served on the side (of course) and a salad will be available as well. A little greenery will be nice to provide some relief to the creamy, garlicky goodness of the pasta. Mine will be a Caesar salad. Buono!

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

It's another CURRY SUNDAY! For tonight's curry, we'll go with a Thai green curry with its soapy, spicy.... uh... goodness? Anyways, we'll serve it over rice and we'll make three pots: pork, chicken, and tofu so you can have the protein of your choice, and before it comes out we'll have coconut shrimp and a peanut sauce that I'll probably fill up on. Good stuff, overall.

[catty-cb 4,412]

On 3/5/2021 at 2:41 PM, NMUSpidey said:

How does pasta sound tonight? We'll serve up an alfredo and pour it on fettucini. Garlic bread will be served on the side (of course) and a salad will be available as well. A little greenery will be nice to provide some relief to the creamy, garlicky goodness of the pasta. Mine will be a Caesar salad. Buono!

That sounds great, have been offline for the last couple of days as I was removing weeds from the lawn in the weekend and when I tried to stand up straight realized I'd put my back out, it still doesn't feel right, but its on the mend

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but Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) is the only one I've watched all the way through

Same here, I never watched the "big bang" when it first came on, for some reason got caught up watching it towards the end of the final series, just after xmas they started repeating it from the beginning so am watching it now ... up to series three.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Back injuries are tough, I hope you recover quickly and without physical therapy or strong painkillers! It must be nice to be outside enjoying some late summer weather. Or is it early fall now? I'm not sure how it works down there. We're having a surprise spring day today (it reached almost 10C!) but tomorrow it will rain and we'll be closer to 0C again by the weekend. There is sitll a very real possibility up here for snowstorms through April, so who knows how our winter will end? I hope you have a lot of nice days ahead of you before your winter sets in again!

 

For tonight we'll have some Greek food. Greek salad with plenty of feta cheese and olives (pitted, of course, I hate biting into pits!) and stuffed grape leaves and since I love them so much mutton-filled gyros. There's a place near where I live that serves GREAT gyros (their pizza is amazing, too) and whenever I want to treat myself I go there, like I did when I finished my tour of duty in the granite industry. Anyways, pour yourself some ouzo and help yourself to some Greek cuisine!

[catty-cb 4,412]

On 3/10/2021 at 12:30 PM, NMUSpidey said:

Back injuries are tough, I hope you recover quickly and without physical therapy or strong painkillers!

I've got a dodgy spine based on the x-rays done a few years back and normally am quite careful when it comes to doing stuff in the garden, this time

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It must be nice to be outside enjoying some late summer weather. Or is it early fall now?

it was a very nice early autumn day and I noticed some weeds in the lawn and got a little spray bottle of weed-killer out and was bent over spraying them ... really bad idea, still not quite right so am being very carefully not to do anything that puts it out again

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For tonight we'll have some Greek food.

Sounds great

The government here has made some changes to its vaccine plan, originally it had orders with four different vaccine companies as it wanted to spread out its risk, but has now decided based on the results that its seeing overseas that the best vaccine is the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, so has ordered an extra 8.5 million doses of it which should do everyone in the country, they have also put out the schedule of when people can expect to get their shot.

1. frontline border workers and their families
2. frontline healthcare workers
3. general health care workers
4. people living in age care facilities
5. pre-existing health conditions
6. general population

So far everyone in group 1 has been done and they are working their way thru the people in group 2, I'm in group 5 so based on the currently timescale should be getting vaccinated sometime in may or june, it will be interesting to see how accurate the schedule turns out to be ....

-catty

[catty-cb 4,412]

Our government's way of picking possible new laws to debate in parliment

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/17/biscuit-tin-democracy-the-humble-start-of-new-zealands-most-progressive-laws

This year's new picks

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300250210/parliamentary-lottery-bills-on-sunscreen-killing-police-dogs-and-leave-for-parentteacher-interviews-to-be-debated

Am definitely in favour of the one to increase prison terms for people that kill police dogs.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

That's neat to use a tin that way (although we'd call it a cookie tin hahahahahaha). I hesitate to offer much of a comment on another country's laws. I don't know the reality of living there (unlike Japan where I lived for nearly 8 years) so I'm not sure what it will all mean for your country. I certainly hope for the best!

 

The weather here is really trying to turn into spring. Why don't we fire up the grill to enjoy sunny 10C days? Steaks, corn on the cob and potatoes, a healthy green salad. Hm, and ice cream for dessert. Of course, it's only March here, so there's still a pretty good chance for a snow storm for another month or so, and I'm not prepared to fully welcome this little warm up as being permanent. Oh well, it will be nice while it lasts.

[catty-cb 4,412]

Just been checking my Simtrop notification settings, cos I keep missing your posts

On 3/12/2021 at 2:46 PM, NMUSpidey said:

That's neat to use a tin that way (although we'd call it a cookie tin hahahahahaha).

Biscuits in New Zealand

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I hesitate to offer much of a comment on another country's laws. I don't know the reality of living there......

Its one of those topics I tend to avoid making comments on in forums, as you can quickly find yourself getting into trouble cos what you think is perfectly ok and is in fact legal in your country is illegal in another country ie prostitution to name one example.... here as long as you are over the age of eighteen, pay your taxes and get regular health checkups its fine .....

These days to get to work I've been having to do a bit of tour of the back streets of my home town, back in 1872 a railway line was constructed along the part of valley floor where I live it covered a distance of 32.4 km and has 18 railway stations at the time the rail corridor was large enough to build two lines going north and south, the second line was never built, lots of reasons why not including two world wars, but going anywhere by train where I live involves an awful lot of stops and starts especially as the single line is also used by all the freight trains as well so its a very busy line, amazing really the small number of accidents that's occurred over the years.

Anyway fast forward to 2018 and KiwiRail (owned by the government) announced it was going to spend $49 million double tracking, upgrading stations, etc on our section of the line and another $196 million for upgrades and maintenance on the rest of the railway lines in the local area, they were meant to have finished the bulk of the work by now but covid-19 has caused some delays with getting materials, and the odd lock-down hasn't helped matters ..... still am looking forward to it being completed.

 

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Huh. I could have sworn I had posted something here for CURRY SUNDAY, but it appears not. I wonder what happened. Weird.

 

I like the idea of train travel more than I like train travel itself. It was fine for my wife and I to travel around Tokyo by train when we lived there, but our lives improved dramatically when we moved to the countryside and went mobile in our own car. Maybe it's the American in me. Being born here and living with my own car on my own schedule has made me (especially in my increasingly old age) intolerant towards sharing my mobility with every single one of my neighbors while all being tied to a schedule set by someone who does not know or care about when I want to go somewhere. Funny enough, I love putting train lines in my cities, and I think if you're going to live in a city you should definitely forego a car and use the mass transit system if able. And if I ever had to live in Tokyo or Osaka again I'd probably let myself be bound to a train line. But I wouldn't do it by choice.

It's good that your government at least has put plans in motion to enhance your rail lines. I hope they are able to do it within their budget, but there are always unforeseen difficulties in any project...

For tonight, let's go with some barbecue chicken. We'll grill it up and slather it with tangy/spicy/sweet barbecue sauce as well as the usual corn on the cob and green salad. We'll make some rice pilaf to go with it, and a fine selection of pies to wash it all down. I'll go with pecan pie, my current favorite. 

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Huh. I thought I was here on Thursday or Friday. Weird. But at least I'm here for CURRY SUNDAY! For tonight's curry, we'll go with an Indian biryani served over basmati rice with tea of your choice to wash it down.

 

We had a nice, if windy, spring weekend, something that's actually a little unusual this far north in Michigan for March. I don't expect it to hit the 60s on a regular basis until May, and there is still a serious risk of heavy snow through April, and sure enough we're forecasted to get some flurries this Friday.  That's great for me, I love cold weather, but at the same time it will be nice to walk to work when it's a little warmer.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Today is Tuesday. That means it's time for TACOS! What would you like on your tacos? We have taco meat, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, several types of salsa, shredded cheese, avocado, green onions, sour cream, and sauteed onions and green and red peppers. Choose your shell and load it up! I'm going with a soft corn tortilla and putting everything except lettuce on it. It's a Taco Tuesday Fiesta!

[catty-cb 4,412]

Have missed your last post as I wasn't getting the notification message that  seems to have sorted itself out .... will do a more lengthy post later, but in the meantime I'll have a taco with everything bar the lettuce.

[catty-cb 4,412]

You know winter is on its way, when you find yourself digging out your duffle coat, unlike the example in the wiki entry my one is made out of a very thick wool material

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffel_coat

Am feeling a bit guilty as I've had all summer to built a raised vegetable garden (3 of them with paved paths between them) down the side of the house and so far only one of them is built and I still haven't filled it up with soil .... thru I have been buying plants to go in them, not vegetables as you might expect as the plan is to have berry garden, so far I've got

Blackberry
Loganberry
Boysenberry
Black Current
Red Current
Blueberry
Chilean Guava
Strawberries

Still want to buy Raspberry and Orangeberry plants

I wanted something low maintenance and once established would provide fruit every year, so fingers crossed I actually finish building it.

On 3/17/2021 at 12:00 PM, NMUSpidey said:

I like the idea of train travel more than I like train travel itself. It was fine for my wife and I to travel around Tokyo by train when we lived there, but our lives improved dramatically when we moved to the countryside and went mobile in our own car. Maybe it's the American in me. Being born here and living with my own car on my own schedule has made me (especially in my increasingly old age) intolerant towards sharing my mobility with every single one of my neighbors while all being tied to a schedule set by someone who does not know or care about when I want to go somewhere. Funny enough, I love putting train lines in my cities, and I think if you're going to live in a city you should definitely forego a car and use the mass transit system if able. And if I ever had to live in Tokyo or Osaka again I'd probably let myself be bound to a train line. But I wouldn't do it by choice.

Yes feel the same, thru my mother and me were looking at the train holidays available in New Zealand and thinking how nice it would be to do one of the Dominion Post Readers Tours (they do two a year) unfortunately never happened before she passed away and now because of Covid-19 they are on hold, this was the South Island Tour in 2018 which is when me and my mother were looking at it, I think one of the things that attracted us to it was they were planning the trips for people over 60 so it seemed something mum could have done

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/kiwi-traveller/112902464/stuff-readers-rail-tour-why-nothing-beats-seeing-the-south-island-by-train

They also do a North Island Tour

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/nz/96285300/dominion-post-rail-tour-visits-north-island-spots

If you look at the bottom picture on this link

https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/94842656/dominion-post-readers-rail-tour-back-for-another-year?rm=m

you can see why my mum thought it would be something she could do.

 

 

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

They do seem to cater to a more mature crowd, eh? The southern island one looks more interesting to me, is the southern island more wild? Er, that is, wilder? Less inhabited? I like wide open nothingness (part of why we live in Upper Michigan, there are miles of nothing up here). There is some truly beautiful scenery down there.

 

Tonight we're going to make some Chinese food: sweet and sour pork, egg rolls, fried rice, egg drop soup, wantan soup, potstickers (if that's what gyoza are in English). Xie xie! (my knowledge of the Chinese language is seriously limited)

[catty-cb 4,412]

On 4/1/2021 at 12:43 PM, NMUSpidey said:

They do seem to cater to a more mature crowd, eh? The southern island one looks more interesting to me, is the southern island more wild? Er, that is, wilder? Less inhabited? I like wide open nothingness (part of why we live in Upper Michigan, there are miles of nothing up here). There is some truly beautiful scenery down there.

The South Island (its official name is Te Waipounamu) covers 150,437 km2 and according to wiki last year the population was 1,187,300 with 394,700 (=/-) of them living in the Christchurch City area so yes very definitely less inhabited .... thru am not sure it could be described as wild as remember any mammals (apart from bats) were brought into the country by the first settlers so all pretty safe.

I have had my first shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, wasn't expecting to get it so early but live very close to the vaccination clinic and I was on the reserve list to get a shot if they had any spare doses available at the end of the day .... vaccination centre will also give me the second shot in a couple of weeks time.

We have just had four days off work for the easter holidays so I thought I really need to get my raised garden built .... still need to add pavers between them and fill them up with soil

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

That will be lovely when it's finished!

 

Since I'm now a semi-essential worker I was directed by the county to get a shot last week. My arm hurt for a few days. We all go back to the university at the end of April for our second shot. I'm looking forward to maskless life, but there are a lot of people who want to wear them, and want to make everyone else wear them. Forever. So whatever. I'm glad I don't have to make the decision about it. Whatever they tell me to do I'll do, regardless of my feelings on the subject. I'm in no position to judge anything about this subject.

 

We had our first 70F day today. It was very warm and I went down the street to get a disappointing taco for lunch. I should have gotten a sandwich instead. Oh well. For tonight, let's do pizza and cheesy bread. My favorite pizza toppings are bacon, onions, green peppers, and mushrooms, so those are what will end up on mine. How will you take yours?

[catty-cb 4,412]

9 hours ago, NMUSpidey said:

.My arm hurt for a few days. We all go back to the university at the end of April for our second shot. I'm looking forward to maskless life, but there are a lot of people who want to wear them, and want to make everyone else wear them. Forever. So whatever. I'm glad I don't have to make the decision about it. Whatever they tell me to do I'll do, regardless of my feelings on the subject. I'm in no position to judge anything about this subject.

Yes ditto re arm otherwise felt perfectly fine and we only have to wear masks on public transport so mask wearing has never been an issue here, thru I did have to wear a mask to go and get the shot and also yes like you am going to do whatever the experts say to do.

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We had our first 70F day today. It was very warm and I went down the street to get a disappointing taco for lunch. I should have gotten a sandwich instead. Oh well. For tonight, let's do pizza and cheesy bread. My favorite pizza toppings are bacon, onions, green peppers, and mushrooms, so those are what will end up on mine. How will you take yours?

I miss the work sandwiches ... the cafe at work isn't allowed to sell them due to some weird new law that says you can't sell food that doesn't have a label containing all sorts of information like country of origin, and all the ingredients inside it .... it seems wrapping a sandwich in plastic and writing "ham, cheese and pickle" on the side doesn't count.

...... I'll swap out the bacon for ham and pineapple the rest of the toppings sound great.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

I can understand people wanting to know what's in their food and where it comes from. Perhaps if we all knew a little more about it we would make better decisions (I'm not so sure I would eat fewer Reese's or Cadbury Creme Eggs, but whatever, let's not make this about me) and eat less processed food which I suppose is the real target of this sort of regulation. Still, the illegalization of hand-made sandwiches makes me sad.

SO we'll have sandwiches tonight. I love sandwiches, and I love subs even more. Give me a loaf of French bread (a small one, let's not get too crazy) and pile it with salami, turkey breast, Swiss cheese, colbyjack cheese, tomato slices, purple onions, and banana peppers and we're looking at a fantastic main dish. I'll also take a side of low-salt tortilla chips and medium spicy picante sauce. Hm. Now I'm hungry again.

[catty-cb 4,412]

1 hour ago, NMUSpidey said:

...Give me a loaf of French bread (a small one, let's not get too crazy) and pile it with salami, turkey breast, Swiss cheese, colbyjack cheese, tomato slices, purple onions, and banana peppers and we're looking at a fantastic main dish. I'll also take a side of low-salt tortilla chips and medium spicy picante sauce. Hm. Now I'm hungry again.

WOW that sounds yummy 

[catty-cb 4,412]

Winter is definitely on its way here and I was very tempted in the weekend to setup my fake fire, I've got a Dimplex Optimyst fire so all the joys of having a fire without the hassle of sorting out wood, etc for it.

 

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

That looks pretty neat. We only have a fire when we go camping in the summer time, and yes, we have to mess around with wood and stuff and I don't really enjoy that part, or the smoke, either. After a few pretty nice days we're back to winter weather, with snow flurries and icy north winds screaming at us from across Lake Superior. I love it, but a lot of people are unhappy about it, especially after the brief taste of spring we had.

Tonight we will serve a lasagna with garlic bread fresh from the oven. It's hard to believe I wasn't here last week. I've been working too much on my other projects I suppose. Oh well, enjoy the lasagna!

[catty-cb 4,412]

It's been cold enough to have it going, the cats eyes lit up when they saw it was on as it's their favorite place to sleep in the evening

Yummy lasagna

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

There's nothing quite like relaxing in front of a fire. I'd trade places with that cat in an instant! I'd just need a pillow or three hahahaha.

 

We're getting our second spring today and tomorrow and then we're back in rain/slow mix on Saturday. Eventually it'll warm up to the point where it's comfortable for me to walk to work without a coat.

 

For tonight we'll make some okonomiyaki, known in English as the Japanese pizza or the Japanese pancake or the Japanese omelet. made with dedicated okonomiyaki flour, cabbage, bonita flakes so thin they dance when put on anything hot, and special okonomiyaki sauce, they are a well-loved treat, and since "okonomi de" (the root word of the food) means "however you like it" you can add any extra ingredients you want. I like to add mushrooms and bacon to mine. We'll set out the teppan and grill it up for you right before your eyes.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

I think it's been a while since we've had a CURRY SUNDAY, so why don't we have one now, for old time's sake? For tonight's curry we'll go with the tried-and-true (and my favorite) S&B Golden Curry with pork, mushrooms, potatoes, and onions. We'll serve it over basmati rice and I'm going to have a nice, tall glass of iced mugi-cha to go along with it. I should be ready to face the new week after this!

[catty-cb 4,412]

The curry sounds delicious, have missed our curry sundays.

Have got the week off work in hopes of getting those last pre-winter jobs done ... in my previous house that would have meant looking at the contents of the wood shed and trying to decide if I'd got enough firewood in over summer and autumn to last thru winter, have mixed feelings about not having a fireplace now .... on the one hand it's a lot less hassle,  but on the other hand I miss having the security of knowing in a power cut that I'd still got heating, etc

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

4 hours ago, catty-cb said:

The curry sounds delicious, have missed our curry sundays.

 

It will return, soon.

On 4/5/2021 at 6:41 AM, catty-cb said:

The South Island (its official name is Te Waipounamu) covers 150,437 km2 and according to wiki last year the population was 1,187,300 with 394,700 (=/-) of them living in the Christchurch City area so yes very definitely less inhabited .... thru am not sure it could be described as wild as remember any mammals (apart from bats) were brought into the country by the first settlers so all pretty safe.

I have had my first shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, wasn't expecting to get it so early but live very close to the vaccination clinic and I was on the reserve list to get a shot if they had any spare doses available at the end of the day .... vaccination centre will also give me the second shot in a couple of weeks time.

We have just had four days off work for the easter holidays so I thought I really need to get my raised garden built .... still need to add pavers between them and fill them up with soil

I'm getting to know your back yard pretty well.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

My wife makes these things called porcupine meatballs where you mix rice in with the meatballs and bake them and the rice at the top sticks out and becomes crispy and, indeed, they resemble porcupines. They are delicious, and I think they will make a great dinner to share with everyone tonight.

 

I hope your winter goes well. Do you suffer many power outages? We haven't had one since we've been back up north, the last one we had was in Cleveland and lasted for part of a single (snowy April) day. I don't remember many power failures when we lived in Japan, either. There were a handful before that, though, there was one towards the end of winter where power for the whole city was out for nearly a whole day. Our apartment was frigid by the time the day was over, but thankfully everything kicked back on just when we were ready to sit down for dinner.

 

I remember another big, multi-day power outage that affected almost all the Midwest and New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, but for some reason up here in the UP we were spared. My dad used the occasion to buy a generator for the house. When we finally are able to build our A-frame in the woods, we're probably going to invest in one of those, because winter storms up here can be truly wicked, especially for those living outside the little cities we have.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

Used to get power outages all the time, when I lived in Miami. Called and asked about it once. They tried to blame it on squirrels on the lines. I kid you not.

Garbage-less burritos(all meat and spices)

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

In certain areas of Japan the power companies have big problems with raven nests shorting out the power lines. They started sending out crews to take down the nests so the ravens started building decoy nests to fake the power company workers out. Ravens are scary smart. Much respect.

I got hit by the truck of my second vaccination shot. I feel slightly better than I did this morning, and I hope to feel better still by tomorrow so I can go back to work. If I can't, at least I have sick days so I won't miss out on any pay. Public sector work is great if you can get it. So for tonight let's do chicken noodle soup to ease our weary bones and achy muscles and chilling fevers. Or at least mine.

[catty-cb 4,412]

11 hours ago, NMUSpidey said:

I got hit by the truck of my second vaccination shot. I feel slightly better than I did this morning, and I hope to feel better still by tomorrow so I can go back to work.

I had a nasty 24 hours with headaches and nausea after my 2nd shot and was fine after that so hopefully you are the same.

As for power cuts most of ours are caused by an Australian import, back in the 1800s the new settlers in the country were missing not having anything to hunt due to a lack of mammals so decided to import the common brushtail possum from Australia as a animal that could provide meat and fur ... it started a wave of people importing animals and birds into the country cos they missed them ...

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is a nocturnal, semi-arboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae, native to Australia, naturalised in New Zealand, and the second-largest of the possums

Anyway it doesn't seem to have occurred to those early settlers that importing a mammal into a country that didn't have any or would also not have any natural predators in that country was going to be the possum idea of heaven, by the time the government realized what was happening we had 48 million of them who all think power poles are just some weird looking tree to climb up.

The power companies add possum guards to the poles to try and keep them from zapping themselves into eternity and taking out the power for the surrounding neighborhood, but the only thing that is really working is the government has declared an open-hunting season on them and also been actively encouraging companies to hunt them for their meat and fur as a result the population is now down to 30 million